Kindred
by SmallestGrackle
Summary: It is said that two souls, whether kin or strangers, old or young, friend or foe, may be 'kindred'. These souls are thought to be bound in some way, their paths wound by Fate from the same thread. Many never realize this, but some choose to follow the thread, whatever may come. Until. - This is a Blackwater departure AU, with the goal of character realism and a slow-burning plot.
1. Chapter 1 - Blackwater

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-I promised myself I wouldn't do this, but I've written a fic. I couldn't help it. I blame the gods?_

_-Anyway, two things I'd like to point out:_

_1) I've aged Sansa. I'M SORRY. I just couldn't handle the pairing otherwise. I'm a sissy. I have her at about 17 to begin with, assuming Joff hadn't married her yet for political reasons, with all the raucous over her father._

_2) Sandor's age is in accordance with the books, NOT the show. However, some people prefer the HBO show's portrayal of Sandor, so you think of him as a somewhat younger version of the actor if that suits you. My version of him is represented by my story's cover image._

_-*Thank you to Corseque, who painted my story's cover image of Sandor Clegane. It's perfect!*_

_-Thank you kindly for caring to read. This is (and will be) truly a labor of love.  
_

_____-A visual representation of _Kindred___ can now be found on my tumblr (my tumblr username is the same as my username here). On the right-hand side, there is a link titled "Kindred-related posts". All images have been credited to their creators. It's nothing elaborate, just some stuff I've found to supplement the story a bit. This is also where I post some extra author's notes that I do not put here, like my thoughts on plot development, reviews, etc._

_-Though he is unaware of its existence, this story is dedicated to James, without whom I never would have realized my value and potential, or found my way home._

* * *

**CHAPTER 1**

Sansa shuddered. Fingers clutching the stained cloak, she pulled it more tightly around her, then pressed her wet eyes into the thick fabric.

_Wipe your face. Wipe your face and get up._

She rose. An eerie emerald glow still flickered at the stone edges of the single window in her room, still burning, still killing. One hand clinging to the cloak, she sniffled and peered out. It took her a moment to realize why she searched among what remained of the distant chaos below, looking at the tops of heads for one taller than the rest, or perhaps one with a distinctive helm. She was looking for the Hound. She wanted to watch him go, to confirm that the only wall left between her and the full force of Joffrey's brutality had finally fallen.

It was impossible to tell one running man from the next. With a last defeated sob, she leaned her elbows on the stone sill and nestled her face into her palms, the cloak falling in a bloodied heap on the floor. Why _would_ she have left with him? Why would he ask her? Perhaps he'd been something of a reluctant ally here in King's Landing, where there were guards, and laws, and watchful eyes, but she couldn't know what truly lurked beyond the Hound's bottled anger and quiet cynicism. Before, she'd entertained thoughts of some secretive sense of compassion hiding beneath his scowls, but this night had left her with naught but fear and a cold emptiness lying like a stone in her stomach.

It was _truth_ she felt now. Cruel, black, uncaring truth. She was alone and friendless, and always had been. She'd been alone when Joffrey pretended to love her. She'd been alone when Cersei promised to spare her father. And she'd been utterly alone when the Hound, drunk and indifferent, had seemed to help her here and there, only to prey ceaselessly on her at every moment they found themselves alone. There wasn't any sense to it, the way he had seemed fond of her, yet _hated _her so avidly; the way she was sure, just minutes ago, that he was going to rape and murder her there in her bed, but then he cried.

Then she was angry. She stepped over the cloak, meaning to leave the Hound on the floor with it, and went to her wardrobe. As her fingers combed through the assorted capes and robes, she thought on what to do. Some fear had seized her at the window, a thought that she shouldn't be here, shouldn't be anywhere one could easily find her. Though she doubted he had any true integrity through it all, the Hound's sudden absence was weighing on her. She felt naked, with the faces of familiar monsters passing like specters through her subconscious. Illyn Payne. Might Cersei, in her madness, set him on Sansa out of spite? Stannis, if he came. Joffrey, who'd lost droves of men and enjoyed no easy win this night. Joffrey.

_Joffrey_.

She chose a simple cape of black velvet and fetched a hairpin. Twisting her auburn tresses into a knot, she pinned it deftly and then whisked the cape round her shoulders. Planning only to be away from her room for what was left of this vicious night, she took nothing else and went to the door. When she pulled at the handle, the lock above rattled and held fast. The Hound had locked it behind him when he went. He'd locked the monsters out. Without pause, she turned the latch and thrust the door open, but it was held there, agape.

_He bothered to lock the door._

The bloodied cloak was there where she'd left it, growing cold and purposeless. The door creaking as she let it go, she turned and hurried to gather it up. Its smell wafted up at her as she folded it; horses, leather, sweat, wine, blood. She folded it in such a way that most of the stains wouldn't show, and then placed it between some of her other garb in the chest at the foot of her bed. When she closed the chest, she felt better, and smoothed the front of her cape before returning to the doorway. The halls were still empty, the Keep still out of sorts. And when she strode off toward the small empty sept shared by the servants, she didn't look back.


	2. Chapter 2

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_All of Sansa's remembered quotes from the Hound..._

_("Pretty thing, and such a bad liar." ; "__Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger." ; and "__You're empty-headed as a bird for true._")  


_...are all from George R.R. Martin's original works.  
_

_Warning: Elements in this scene depict violence and may not be suitable for those under the age of 16 and/or people with certain triggers having to do with physical violence._

_Thank you so much for reading!  
_

* * *

CHAPTER 2

_Father._

Candlelight played solemnly along the walls of the sept, bringing eerie life to each of the pitiful clay statuettes that lined the walls. Sansa had been praying for minutes long and silent, but somehow, she'd broken. As ever before, her prayers to the Mother for hope and the Crone for wisdom had faded off, and she found herself talking to him.

_Father, why have you gone? Can you not hear? Can you not see how lost I have become?_

She heard nothing. Only the deafening silence that lives in all stone rooms. Lifting off of her kneecaps, she rocked back and settled on her behind, bringing her knees up like a child. She'd hoped not to have any tears left in her, but on they came, rising with the quiver of her chin and welling in the corners of her eyes. When the droplets began to patter against the floor, one after the other, she lost her silence.

"I miss you, father. I never meant… the letters, I never meant them." She hugged herself, locks of hair loosening from her bun and hanging in wisps as she dipped her head. "I'm not like you. I am weak, and you're strong. The strength of the North… I'll never see it again. Nor you." The realities voiced in her sobs hovered over her in a cloud. She couldn't escape from them. She couldn't pretend as she once had.

_'Pretty thing, and such a bad liar.'_

Her head was bowed, and her hair had come down around her shoulders when they came. She heard them first, boots scuffling along the floor of the adjacent hall as they hummed, boasted, cursed. Since nearly this entire floor of the Keep was abandoned, she'd left the door to the sept open behind her. Leaning forward, she blew the few candles out and sat there in the dark, unmoving. _They will go past_.

"Look what we've come back to," one of their voices echoed down the hall. It was familiar to Sansa, though she couldn't picture the face. "Helllooo!"

"Aye, quite the welcoming party. Give me that wineskin."

"No serving wenches left. Not even any WHORES." The last word was shouted, and it echoed back, making the lot of them laugh. It was an awful sound. She could discern two, possibly three men. And she felt she knew at least one. The sounds stopped. They'd ceased their walking, and Sansa stiffened.

"What?" one said.

"Wait. D'you smell that?"

"It's you. You smell terrible." Another laugh.

"Shut it. It's burning candles."

"And?"

"And all the rooms are dark, you fool. Someone's just put it out."

Sansa froze. They were just near the door. "Who's in there? Boros, fetch one of those torches." Ser Boros was with them, and he was Kingsguard. Still, she kept her silence, but the order came as a snarl this time. "You'd best come out and show your face, else I'll come in there and carve it up."

There was no other way out of this. She took a breath and stood slowly, pulling the hood of her cloak up over her auburn head as she did as she was bid. She would be taken to Joffrey or the Queen, it seemed, and she would need to steel herself for any wrath he might lay upon her for wandering so freely.

Ser Boros Blount was indeed there, accompanied by Ser Meryn Trant and a guard whom Sansa hadn't seen before. They were all bloodied and wet, covered in mud and gods knew what else. Ser Meryn clung to a wineskin, his eyes drunk and glassy. In truth, they all looked half mad. "Sers," she greeted them with somber courtesy. "You've come in from battle." In the dim light of the hall, it took a few moments before she was recognized.

"Seven hells, it's the Stark girl." Boros gave her a grin that chilled her to her bones.

"What're you doing down here," demanded Ser Meryn, "hiding in a dark sept? There's a fucking battle still going on. Are you witless?"

"I…" Sansa hear her voice shake. "I was praying, Ser Meryn. For Joffrey, and the Queen, and all the rest of us. And you."

Meryn leered at her. "Were you, now. Praying for me."

He had caught the lie, she could see. "For the Kingsguard," she insisted. "For victory in this terrible battle."

"Oh," Meryn said. His voice was poisonous, lined with contempt. "What would you know about that?"

She stood up a little straighter and began, "I…," but the nameless guard drowned her out.

"What say we teach her a bit about violence?"

Ser Boros's chuckle was quiet, dangerous. "I'd say Meryn's already done that. It seems Joffrey's made a gift of the girl, a new yard doll for the Kingsguard to train on."

"She probably likes it," said Meryn.

They were all battle-mad. "Sers, please don't be unkind," Sansa said carefully. "You're frightening me."

Trant seemed to retreat a few steps then, shrugging at her. "Oh, our apologies, my lady." She thought she'd feel relieved, but these new words were no less biting. "It's just that we've been long in the fighting. In the blood. But no, wouldn't want to get any of it on that pretty face, would we?"

_'Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger.'_

Clearing her throat, she lowered the hood from her hair and wiped any tears that might have been left on her pale cheeks. She smiled, light and sweet, hoping frantically that they might remember themselves if she spoke with kindness and normalcy. "My lords," she said. "You've all fought so bravely this night." They only looked at her, faces tainted with cruel smirks and grins, waiting. She went on as if she hadn't noticed. "If you would honor me by escorting me to the Queen, she would be grateful. I know we are all so thankful for all have sacrif—"

"Would someone shut her up?" Ser Meryn looked bored now. He tossed a hand in Sansa's direction and Ser Boros took a few steps.

Sansa stumbled away from him and pulled her cape around her shoulders as if it were a shield. "Sers, what—" Then, she knew. They didn't care anymore. The Keep was in chaos, the Queen was drunk, and Sansa had wandered from her room on her own accord. They could do whatever they wanted, and would never be caught. Her assailant could have been anyone.

_'You're empty-headed as a bird for true.'_

"Pretty cloak," remarked the man she did not know. "Anyone want to see what's under it?"

Boros Blount rounded on her, but he must have assumed her to be too innocent or demure to understand. When she bolted, it startled him; he tripped on himself and nearly toppled. Trant roared something after her, but she did not hear. She rounded a corner, then the next, then a hall. She could hear their armor rattling too closely behind, and she pinched the silver clasp at her throat, letting the cloak fall away so she might be quicker. Half a moment later, there was a shout and a clang. One of them had fallen, slipped on the velvet.

"TAKE THE BITCH," Trant bellowed.

Her lungs sank in her chest as she realized these were the servants' dwellings. She didn't know this part of the castle. The Queen and all her guards would be somewhere up in the high rooms. _Up_. She had to find a staircase.

"Where are you running?" one of them taunted her, his words shaking with each of his pounding footfalls. "Where are you going? Do you know?"

There! A stair. _No_. Not up. It went down. There wasn't time; she followed it. Yes, it was faster this way. She couldn't run like this going up a stair, but going down, she had speed. Now, she seemed caught in a pattern. Down. Hall. Turn. Hall. Stair. Down. Down. _Down_.

A door. It was locked. She rose her eyes to see Boros Blount snarling at her, rounding the corner. She took off, but now, he was just an arm's length behind her. Another door. Locked. No, barred. _Bars._

_Gods, no._ These were the dungeons. She'd run right into them.

_'…empty-headed as a bird…'_

Her eyes filled with tears, and he was on her. Hands like steel shackles crushed her wrists until she thought the bones might crack. "Please!" she shrieked. "Please don't... you _can't_. I am the Queen's ward. You'll be…"

"SHUT IT."

The slap came with a ferocity she wasn't prepared for. Even after Joffrey's ordered beatings, she hadn't been dealt such a blow before. His knuckles hammered the bridge of her nose, and she saw white as hot pain shot through her head. When she murmured another feeble plea, blood filled her mouth. "The…Queen…"

"_Fuck_ the Queen." Ser Meryn had come from somewhere, and the other man as well. "She doesn't care where you are, or anyone else." He looked at Blount. "Find a cell."

"The…the Hound!" She didn't know why she said it. Desperation had blinded her, and she'd forgotten he was gone. Ser Meryn stared at her, and Ser Boros ground out a laugh that cut her like a whip.

"The Hound?" Meryn sneered. "You believe you'll be rescued… by the Hound. Gods, girl. Truly, you are stupid. He's not even here. And if he was, he'd have gotten to you _first_." He got a handful of her hair, twisting his wrist cruelly so her scalp burned, and pulled her close. "We'd have had to fight our way in for our _turn_."

And she began to sob. Her shoulders shook, her breaths became choked and cluttered, and she sank toward the floor. Meryn still had her hair, but the pain was far away. She would die here.

"Get up," Ser Meryn growled, disgusted. Her yanked her up, but her body was limp. The sobs came on and on.

"On your feet!" Ser Boros kicked her, a boot jamming into her ribs, and she lost her breath. New pain rose up with the blow, and she gagged.

The next came at her face, and the next at her collarbone. She couldn't see, but she felt herself being tossed down, her scalp throbbing where Meryn had torn at her hair. And then they seized her arms instead, and she was dragged across the floor of her tomb.


	3. Chapter 3

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_Once again, thank you for reading. I'm bringing our Hound out with this one, or my own version of him, at least._

_Your reviews provide an overwhelming level of support and encouragement, and they inspire my work, so I thank you for going to the trouble to write them. Let me know how I'm doing!_

_The memories of Sansa's quotes, mentioned at the end, are fro GRRM's original works._

_Any other story info is listed at the top of Chapter 1. Thanks again!_

* * *

CHAPTER 3

When the Hound awoke, he didn't know where he was, or how he'd come to be there. First came a soft, feathery feeling of something tracing across the good side of his forehead, caressing…no, _swatting_ his face. He grunted, tried to move, and opened one groggy eye to find it blocked by a swathe of coarse hair that flitted away only to swat him again. Raising a hand to shield himself from it, he opened his other eye to stare upward at the bulky shadow looming over him. Then he remembered everything. Waking to the smell of horse manure and molded hay was not an unfamiliar experience, but it wasn't one he was particularly fond of either. At least the stables weren't on fire. In any case, the sight of a horse's arse above him was somewhat better than a sword in his belly, and he smirked bitterly at that while he worked to get an elbow beneath himself for leverage.

Rain pounded away on the roof of the stables, drowning some of the distant sounds of shouts and scuffles, few and far between. He guessed the night had reached its wee hours now, and more men were probably dead than not. The way his forehead still pulsated with fresh, biting pain, he couldn't have been out for more than half an hour. He dabbed his calloused fingers against it, and they came away wet and sticky. The gash hadn't even the time to properly clot.

Sitting up slowly, he winced, molars grinding as scattered pains tugged at nerves all along his body. The conflict had left its marks on him; cuts, lumps, bruises. He was becoming little more than a colony of scars. He leaned forward to see the shadowy outline of a dead man slumped in the corner of the stall across the way, a bolt in his neck and an empty scabbard lying nearby. Blood glinted in the dark as it ran freely from the wound, but the Hound could see the whites of his lifeless eyes. He was certain the body hadn't been there when he came in. The man had either crawled to the stables to die in the quiet, or was killed right where he sat. Being covered in blood himself, he'd probably been left alive only because he was lying in such still, drunken oblivion that whomever passed would have mistaken him for dead as well.

He felt bile rising in his throat, leaned over, and spat. "Others take me…" Only he would choose to perform his desertion while madly drunk, and during the remnants of a battle at that. And only he would make it to his horse, just to hoist himself impatiently, lean too far, and knock himself senseless on the bloody stall gate. He clawed at the wall of the stall until his hand found a wooden feeding trough, and used it to heave himself up. The movement caused his vision to blur, and his stomach turned. Wavering, he leaned over the trough and vomited.

When he straightened, his heart was thudding faster beneath his jerkin and mail, but his mind had cleared considerably. He shook his head, much like a wet dog, and the shorter pieces of his jagged-cut, coal-colored hair stuck out at odd angles. "How many now?" he rasped, making certain his scabbard still had a sword in it. Then he clapped a hand against the horse's hind quarters. "How many times've I fallen off of you?" Stranger tossed his head and angled one of his eyes at his master. The steed, with eyes like huge black pearls, only blinked his long lashes and snorted before turning to face the only man he'd let tame him. "Aye, aye." The Hound patted the beast's velvety jaw. "Time to go." The dark had grown ominous, and the smells of fire and flesh weren't far. He had stayed too long.

He slipped his fingers through a strap on Stranger's bridle and guided him out of the stall, the soft sounds of clopping hooves and horse's breath lending to calm his thoughts. It didn't extinguish them, though. She was still there, her voice tiny and terrified in his head, her whispered notes shaky and off-tune. He willed it away and stopped the warhorse at the open doors of the stables, focusing his attention on the now and the next, as he liked to do. There was no _then_, it was gone and done.

His food stores and waterskins were intact, his bed roll secured, and all the saved golds, coppers, and silvers he could bring without overburdening his horse were safe.

_Could've lost it all, you senseless fuckwit. Had anyone come closer, they'd have seen._

He leaned a shoulder through the doorway, looking sideways across the bailey. The clouds rolling over the Keep reflected an angry green, rumbling and cracking every now and again, but the storm was waning. Someone groaned close by, a man in the mud taking too long to die. There was no one else, no one alive. The bulk of them would still be outside the walls, on the shore of Blackwater Bay. He wondered, for a moment, whether the King was winning. Then he didn't care. The King had shit in his bed, and would sleep in it.

Venturing into the open now, he wedged his boot into the stirrup and pulled himself up onto Stranger. The great black creature barely moved, whinnying softly and taking a few restless steps against the sopping ground. The Hound settled his weight and wheeled the horse around, facing Maegor's Holdfast. He liked the feeling of being up in the saddle; he was a good rider, always had been, and Stranger had become a second skin.

He galloped a ways, sword naked and hungry for any flesh that might dare to stop him, but he didn't don his helm. It remained in the saddle bag, and would until he cleared the city. It had barely fit, with the surplus of food, water, and wine. He hadn't come to the girl without contrived intention, after all; he'd packed enough for the both of them. It just hadn't gone the way he had planned it. He'd gotten…confused, somehow, once he had her there. Lost in what he wanted. Even now, he couldn't place why he'd gone to her, why he'd made the offer at all. Couldn't and wouldn't. Again, he pressed it away.

He'd go through the godswood, trailing along the Holdfast's walls, then on to the shore, where he'd follow Blackwater Rush to a crossing. The plan was unlikely to go without conflict, he knew, but if he made it to the Kingswood, the road would be clearer from there. And he didn't have the girl to slow him now, to make things difficult. He made Stranger fall into a walk when he got close to the wall ringing the godswood, and glanced up at one of the Holdfast's towers to see the window of the bird's cage there. The cage she had chosen to stay in. "Smart girl," he grumbled to the air. Then he squinted. The room was still illuminated, the girl's candles left burning into the night. Surely, she would've been asleep by then. Might be she was just too afraid. Never been in the midst of a war before. He urged the horse on.

At the gate to the wood, there was only one man left at his post, and he was a youth. When he saw the Hound, he asked his obligatory questions, but didn't look ready to protest if the answers weren't right. The Hound's sword hadn't touched its scabbard since he'd mounted, and the boy's eyes were on it when the answer came at a growl, quick and short, "Kingsguard. No business of yours. _Move_." And the boy moved. He opened the gate and could barely keep his eyes in his head as he watched the Hound ride past.

The rain slowed and stopped. He was careful with Stranger, pulling him around the roots and pits in the wet ground and leaning in time with his steps. With all the massive old trees, the godswood was an easy place for a horse to step between roots and break a leg. He was going right along the Holdfast wall, knowing he must have been parallel to the heart of the castle by then, when Stranger spooked. The horse trampled to a stop, turned one way, then the next, whinnying lightly. His eyes had a look to them, and his ears were perked.

The Hound knew his horse, and he patted the beast along its neck, slow and calm. Fervently, his eyes passed over the trunks of the trees, searching for movement in the dark. A sound like wind in a corridor crept into one ear, his burned ear, and he felt Stranger toss his head, fighting the bit, snorting. "Alright, boy, alright," he murmured, but the horse's eyes were bright and searching. Then, he heard it too.

For a moment, he thought it was an animal; some squirrel being dragged away by a fox. But this was the godswood, walled all the way around. There were no predators here. Again, it came, and it sounded like a child. It was _screaming_. From far, far off, he could hear it come back and then fade off again, almost as if it was beneath him. He dismounted, led Stranger to the closest tree, and tied the reins to a limb. It was a short leash. "Stay," was all he said, and then he went back to the wall, listening.

There. Closer now. With one hand resting on the hilt of his blade, he crept along the wall, half-squatting. When the cry came again, so close it startled him, his head whipped around and his eyes landed at his feet. There was a steel grate there, at the base of the wall, a ventilation shaft leading out from the dungeons. He must have been near the secret entrance to the jails. The Hound knelt, his knees in the mud as he lowered an ear to the opening. Now, the sound resonated, jarring him as it came up as a series of whimpers this time, mumbles, calls for help. And the voice… He steadied himself, pushed the panic down.

_No. Not her._

Another shriek, an echo in the dark. A sob.

_Some wretched serving girl, some wench who got snatched up. Can't be her. She's in her room, I locked her in._

But he couldn't pull himself away from the grate. His knuckles had gone white, tightened around the sword's hilt. For a second, two, three, there was nothing. The silence stretched until he thought he'd finally dropped into madness and imagined it all, but then Stranger began to paw at the ground by the tree. The horse whinnied at him, frantically this time, and when the girl's cry came back, it rang clear. "No!" she cried. "I won't tell anyone, I swear it! If you'll untie me, I promise… please, let me go. I won't say a word. _Please!_"

Even from such far off depths, even so hushed by the distance, he knew that word, knew how she said it.

_'Please, you're hurting me.'_

_'What does he want? Please, tell me.'_

_'Please, I only meant…'_

His feet were moving without him.

_Bird._


	4. Chapter 4

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_Warning: Elements in this scene depict violence and may not be suitable for those under the age of 16 and/or people with certain triggers having to do with physical violence._

_Woo! This was a tough one. I'm not perfectly happy with it, but I've picked it apart until I just can't anymore. I'm sorry about all the cliffhangers, but I just... I just can't help ittt! I was going to write the next chapter tonight, but this one took longer than I expected, and just when I got to the part where it ends, I realized I just had to wrap it up and go to bed. But before I do that, I wanted to put something up, at least, so here it is!_

_Any other story info (age adjustments and other minor changes) is listed at the top of Chapter 1. Thank you again for all of your reads and reviews! It makes me all fuzzy inside. I never expected so much support._

* * *

CHAPTER 4

When Sansa's eyes fluttered open again, she didn't know why she had bothered to look; the cell was black as pitch, and there was nothing to see. She shifted and moaned at the the pain gnawing away at her wrists, so she tried to keep herself still. The cord was too tight, wrapped in haste and fixed with excessive knots, and moving made it slide against her raw skin like hot steel. She couldn't feel her fingers anymore. Her arms had been forced above her head and tied to a rusted iron ring on the wall, where a set of shackles had once been. It was all she could do to keep her shoulders high enough so her full weight didn't hang from her swelling wrists.

It was cold here, down in the dank belly of the Keep. Heat didn't make it this far into the ground. She couldn't stop the shivering, and the bare skin of her back and buttocks was dimpled by the cold rock wall and the rough straw beneath her. She lay mostly on one hip, as the left one had been badly bruised when she was thrown against the floor, and kept her legs curled up against her for warmth.

Sound. She heard liquid sloshing and being gulped down above her. Then a sniff, a grunt, and the sickly spatter as one of them spat phlegm at the floor. A light appeared, wavering beyond the door, and her eyes went to it. The man carrying the torch set it in a sconce out in the hall, and then he came lumbering in like a shadow. The sliver of light showed her little in the thick dark of the stone chamber, but now she could glimpse the third man sitting on the floor just near her, his head hanging down as if he were sleeping.

The one who had just come back in was Ser Boros Blount. He sounded nervous, almost despondent when he slurred out his words. "You going to or not? You've gotten us down here."

"On your own accord. D'you want in first?" Ser Meryn barked. He was the one standing above her. Idly, he sloshed the wineskin again, which was far from full now, and Sansa squinted through the black to see something bunched around his legs. When she realized it was his trousers, her stomach went to ice, and she gave another sob, drawing herself closer to the wall. Her strength was so depleted, though, that she couldn't hold her back firmly against it, so she just hung there by her wrists, waiting.

When he got no answer from Blount, who had only looked away from him, Meryn didn't move and just stood before her, his back to the other two as he held his trousers halfway up. "Aren't you going to cry anymore? Eh?" He kicked her hard in the thigh, but she was spent. "Aren't you going to tell us all how horrible we—"

"This is folly," muttered the one sitting on the floor. His words were so garbled, they were barely discernable. He looked to be drifting in and out of consciousness. "Why've we… she's highborn…"

"Quiet," Ser Meryn hissed, and a few droplets of spittle fell across Sansa's face. "I don't want to hear your craven—"

"Gods, get on with it!" snapped Blount. He was at the doorway, glancing down the hall every few seconds. "We've been too long."

Meryn turned to glower at him, and then took a step toward Sansa. She yelped loudly and flinched away, but could only muster a weak, "N-no," as she pulled feebly at her bindings. Meryn stopped, hovering over her, and she could smell his humid breath, fouled by wine. "Don't," she pleaded. Her eyes were shut tight, but she hoped the other two men might hear her through their stupor. "Help me." Her voice was going, fading into a whisper. She had nothing left.

Meryn straightened then, and staggered a few steps back. "Can't," he rumbled beneath his breath. Sansa's heart was pounding in her ears, and she had barely heard it, but it was there. He said it again, infuriated by it, by _her_. "I can't." He snarled a curse and yanked his britches up, struggling with the fastenings. Then he made to drink from the wineskin again, but only looked at it and then threw it with such force that the man sitting on the floor ducked away as it slammed into the wall by his head.

Ser Boros stared at him. "You—"

"I _can't_," Meryn repeated. He looked back down at Sansa, who was watching him silently, her face dirty and red and black. "_Don't you_ _look at me._" His knee came at her temple, and her brain rattled when it struck her. She'd bitten her tongue too, but couldn't feel the pain of it as her head hung, swaying. Her senses had gone dumb.

"What, then?" said Boros, whispering urgently as if the entire castle could be listening. "_What?_"

The two of them seemed to be in a sudden frenzy, the panic of what they had done setting in. When Ser Meryn turned to face the other two men, he caught himself before nearly falling, arms jutting out before him as if he couldn't see. When he'd collected himself, his voice was monotonous, raw, stony. "We have to be rid of her."

Sansa reeled. A burst of will went through her and she yanked at her wrists, shoulders threatening to dislodge from their sockets as she writhed away from the wall. They meant to kill her now, had to. "NO!" she shrieked, voice ringing out like a banshee in the small chamber. "I won't tell anyone, I swear it! If you'll untie me, I promise…" Meryn spun and sank down to her, clawing at her face in the shadows as he tried to shut her up, but she tossed her head away and screamed on. "Please, let me go. I won't say a word. _Please!_" The blow she felt then was so massive, her vision danced with flecks of light. The side of her head felt hot, pulsated, and then numbed as she slumped down the wall.

She must have lost consciousness for a time. The room had become devoid of gravity, and she couldn't tell up from down. Sounds faded in and out with the rhythm of her heart. Moaning in the dark, she worked to gain some hold on her swimming mind until she was able to piece a few of their sentences together.

"No." It was Ser Meryn. "You will do this."

"_What?_"

"You owe me a debt, now you'll pay it. You remember."

"She was a _whore_."

"…belonging to a powerful man. He'd have had your head if I hadn't helped you, _brother_."

"You'll not wash your hands of this."

"Already have. You ought do the same. Sink her in the Rush."

It was minutes before Sansa had regained her vision, and Ser Meryn was gone from the room. The guard with the unfamiliar face had risen and was standing over her, and Ser Boros was hurrying out into the hallway. Exhausted, she closed her eyes once more, hearing only scuffles and voices in the dark, and she sat there, waiting. Waiting for the kindness of death and the end of nightmares. In death, there would be no fear, no hurt. She thought of Lady, with her soft fur and peaceful eyes. She thought of her mother brushing her hair. Old songs. The great North sky. Birds flitting above her, calling. She had always loved birds.

Then, a _thud_. It jolted her, and her body went rigid, the cold and pain coming back all at once. Eyes wide and frantic, she looked to the doorway and watched the dimly lit hall. Shadows looked to be dancing across the wall. The guard who had been above her drew his blade, and he crept cautiously toward the scuffle just as the shriek of steel rang out, resounding off the stone corridor. There was a grunt, a gurgle, and the guard bolted to the doorway with his sword raised wildly, when the torch was snuffed out.

Blackness consumed everything. For a moment, she could only hear the guard's rapid, labored breathing and the anxious shuffling of his boots. Then, much nearer now, there came a growl, a muffled wheeze, and a strange, horrible crack that made her stomach writhe. Something heavy hit the ground, and close, so _close_. Trembling violently, she panted for air as she stared into dark.

And the dark spoke.


	5. Chapter 5

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Heehee, I've been waiting for this scene. Nervous about how it turned out! Sorry I had to take extra time._

_-I made our Hound left-handed. I have no IDEA why, but I feel like it suits him very well. He seems like a lefty. He's just a nonconformist, okay._

_-Any other story info (age adjustments and other minor changes) is listed at the top of Chapter 1._  
_-Once more, thank you for your faithful reads and reviews. Love you all and hope you enjoy it._

* * *

CHAPTER 5

The Hound was sick with bloodlust. The poison had him, and he'd become dizzy with the slaughter, the hate, the guilt. His kill lay at his feet, and were there light, he'd have seen how the head faced the wrong direction, how the fear was frozen in the dead man's eyes. And he'd have liked it. But the stillness thereafter had sprung up to grip him, and the silence was deafening. For a long time, he couldn't move.

Then, he heard her stir. A slipper brushed against the floor, and his shoulders loosened. His left hand hung limp at his side, the longsword slack in his grip as black blood trickled down his knuckles. He expected her to run, or even to approach him, perhaps, but she wouldn't move at all. Or couldn't. The venom left his eyes then, and his snarl receded some, tinged with worry. Cautious, he stepped over the body and spoke into the black.

"Where are you?" He could hear her shallow breath, close, but he was blind in this dark. Ridding himself of the light had been useful, but now he thought better than to fumble around until he managed to fall over the girl. His stomach in knots, he waited, giving her time.

"Please…" There she was. The voice was hoarse and tiny in the cruel stone chamber. He had come too late. Sheathing the blade, he wiped his bloodied hands against his thigh and crossed the room with careful steps, halting when he heard her sniffle below him. Then he sank to the floor. When he reached for her, slow and deliberate, his fingers brushed somewhere along her ribs, and he found not cloth, but skin, cold and shaking against his hand. She jolted away from the touch, murmuring a small sound and pulling her knees closer to her chest.

Wordless, he found a trembling arm and followed it with his hand until he came to her wrists, brutally bound. For a moment, his eyes closed, jaw setting tight, and he pressed the fury back down into his belly. It stayed there, black and heavy, and he studied the bindings with his fingers, separating skin from leather cord, and wrist from the ring set in the wall. Then he went for his dagger. The Hound had used it not long before, to trap the bird in her own cage. Now, he meant to free her.

She seemed unable to tell the difference. As he slipped the sharp tip of the blade against the leather, she recoiled, and the pounding within her chest reached his ears in the quiet. He hushed her, cut the cord, and she gasped when her arms dropped abruptly, letting her collapse the rest of the way to the floor. He caught her wrist and she cried out, struggling against him, writhing to get away.

"Stop," he rasped. "Be still, girl." The voice was harsh and brittle as it had ever been, but there was no threat to it. "_Calm_."

"N-no…please," she muttered. Desperate with terror, her breath caught in her chest, and she reached up to grab at the short scrap of cord left hanging from the ring above. When he pulled at the wrist he held, she yelped, and not just in fear. He knew pain when he heard it and let go, instead wrapping his large fingers around her clinging arm. "Come, let it go."

"Please don't…don't…" She didn't finish the plea, but she didn't have to. He knew what she dreaded. After seeing the fear in her tears as he bent his weight over her in her own bed, he knew.

Sitting back on his haunches, he looked long at her, just able to see the button of her nose, damp with sweat, shining in the dark. "I'll not hurt you." The promise was firm and insistent, but when he went to wrench her fingers away from the hanging cord, she whimpered, and again, he stopped.

_She needs more from you. Needs trust. Force her, and you've become the dead men on the floor._

Sighing roughly through his nose, the Hound gentled his hold on her slender arm. A moment passed, and another. Then, he sounded different. "Sansa." He tugged once. "Let go."

She did. Her arm fell limp in his grasp, and he pulled it to him, fumbling in his blindness. It was important where his hands landed, he knew. One wrong brush, and he could lose her to the fear. He could feel it now, the bits of leather cord still clinging tight to her wrists. He heard her suck a breath in through her teeth when he peeled it away, piece by piece, leaving small, bloody bevels where it had bitten into the skin.

Some horror seemed to dawn on her then, and she grabbed at his sleeve. "W-wait. The others…" She was slurring, groggy, delirious. "They'll come back…going to kill me…"

The Hound shook his head, and he was stone and grit once more. "They're not coming back."

"Ser Boros, he…"

"He's dead," he told her. "I've killed them, bird."

She fell silent, and for a long time, he couldn't even hear her breathing. His brow gathered, frustrated. Just by the way she shifted her head, he knew she was questioning it, how he could so easily remove life. He didn't dwell, though. Couldn't. "I'm going to take you," he said. It was without menace, but his voice was fixed, unbending. "If you fight, I'll go. But you'll not want me to leave you here again. Decide."

He felt her nod her head. Then she swayed, almost falling over, and he caught her shoulders in hard, muscled hands. Hands that hadn't known a fragile thing in a long while. "My arms," she whined when he tried to sit her up, get her standing.

_They hurt. Bound too long._

"Here." He took her forearms and slowly placed them so she was almost hugging herself, the fingers of each hand grasping the opposite shoulder. "Hold there." Then he slipped an arm beneath her knees.

"M-my clothes…" She pressed one of her arms tighter against her naked chest, and her head lolled. She was struggling to hold it up as she reached to stay his hand again. "My dress…" She began to cry, but the tears didn't come anymore, so she only trembled.

"Do you know where it is?" He was becoming cagey now, wanting to take her and go. He didn't like waiting, and his tendency to be patient was a sparse, meager thing. It wouldn't last. She made some answer that was too quiet to understand and leaned against the wall, shaking her head.

Heaving another sigh that ended in a growl, he pulled away from her. "Wait." He was on his feet then, and the girl uttered some odd noise of protest as he strode back out of the cell and into the hall. There, he found Ser Boros, laying in a pile at the foot of the stairs. He bent to rip the white Kingsguard cloak away from the body, and spat contemptuously. His burned side twitched; he felt the muscles tighten, pulling at the scars. Something cold was bubbling up from his center again, its leaden fingers clawing into his chest, feeding to his shoulders, his biceps, his rigid fingers. He knew this thing, and he shook it from himself, beat it down. The rage couldn't take him, not now. With a wary glance up the empty stairwell, he turned and lumbered back to the bird in a rush.

Now, he was moving fast, lifting her, placing her over the cloak, pushing her protesting arms away as if they were blades of grass. "There isn't time," was all he said. Her whimpers and objections at the sudden physical contact were ignored. He wrapped her so tightly in the fabric, only her head was left out, and her tangled copper hair spilled down his back when he lifted her over a shoulder. One of the slippers she still wore fell from her foot, and was lost in the dark.

When he'd gotten to the stairs, he heard a sob as the girl saw Ser Boros with his dead eyes staring at the wall. The Hound stopped and turned his head. "You'll keep quiet now. Deadly quiet. Understand?" It wasn't a question. The severity was creeping back into his eyes. She chirped some sound of acquiescence, and his heart started its thumping, gray irises burning like coals as he began their ascension.

They were on their last flight when he started to hear the noise. Thumps, calls, the opening and closing of doors. It was all far above them, in the residential chambers of the castle. Still, he went faster, going two steps at a time as the girl's breaths came in huffs and gasps with each of his thudding footfalls. He would tear half the inhabitants of this Keep apart before he'd be captured, that he knew.

...

The first feeling of the cool air on his marred face slowed the ramming of his heart. The godswood stood in unwavering peace through this night of madness, its leaves chorusing in a long whisper as they flickered in a breath of wind. The Hound's eyes were dangerous as they caught Stranger, who swatted his tail and snorted loudly at him. The horse looked irritated, but hadn't moved from his tree, a lucky thing since the Hound had seen him chew through a set of reins more than once.

She hadn't made a sound. He pulled the bundle of girl from his shoulder, grunting as he set her down, her back against the base of the tree. She looked barely conscious, her hair matted against her cheeks as her head lolled forward. He put a roughened palm beneath her chin and lifted her face, using a thumb to drag the auburn locks away from it. Then, he was gaping. "Seven…"

Even in the dim, cloudy night, he saw the beatings. Her nose was caked with dried blood, the bridge dark with what could only be an immense bruise. Her bottom lip was split. When he loosened the cloak, tugging it partway down her shoulders, he glimpsed her collarbone and stopped. Pulling away from her as if he'd been burned, he stood and untangled the horse's reins from the tree limb in an obsessive fervor. There was only the now.

_Don't think, don't stop._

When he'd returned to her, her tired blue eyes were open and glassy. Expressionless, he fixed his own eyes there, holding her gaze steady as he pulled at the cloak, working it loose, rewrapping it so it wouldn't be lost on the horse. She didn't move this time, letting him lift her arms and pick her up to tuck the fabric under her like she was some sort of doll, but his eyes never broke the stare until he was done. After he'd tied the cloak in a knot at one shoulder, she parted her lips as if to speak, but didn't. He'd not look at her, not in this way, not here, and he saw that she understood, that she was grateful.

Now, she could ride. He scooped her up and sat her sideways on Stranger's saddle. She clung weakly to the beast's neck to keep herself steady, but the saddle was so wide, there was little danger of her toppling off. The Hound heaved himself up behind her, and the girl bent forward, limp, as he brought an arm around her middle and pulled her roughly against him. Stranger tossed his head and trotted backward, disproving of his new passenger, but the Hound jerked the reins. "Not now," he warned. Then he craned his head back and looked up the massive wall of Maegor's Holdfast.

Squinting, he could see the glow of torches as a small group of men ran in a disorganized ring around the summit of the nearest tower. Another patrol scurried along the top of the wall directly above, and the Hound pulled Stranger closer to it, hugging the stone and staying in its shadow. This wasn't to do with the battle. The groups were small, probably part of the guard looking after the royals and other highborns hiding in their chambers. When someone was lost, it was their duty to retrieve them.

The bird heard as one patrol called across the way to the other, and she croaked softly, "Looking…for me…"

The Hound dug his heels in, and Stranger started off at a trot, moving right along the wall wherever they could while avoiding the trees. Another shout went up, far above them, and the Hound pulled them to a stop again, lost in what to do. They were looking for her. They had maesters, they had beds. Stranger pranced in a half circle, restless.

_Can't take her to them. They'll say you've done it to make quick justice of it, for show if nothing else. _

At that thought, he wanted to steal her away, regardless of what she wanted. She didn't know what she wanted, never had. Always afraid, always running from something, yet never willing to be rid of it. For an instant, he cursed her, but his words said otherwise.

"If I leave you here, they can find you," he rasped. It was an offer and a warning. Soon, it'd be too late. He looked down at the top of her head as she stirred with Stranger's anxious movements. When no answer came, he looked off into the trees, thinking. "You've got to tell me what you want."

She groaned softly, shifting her weight as best she could, and fell still again. She was too frail hold herself up, and his stern expression was pained as pulled her back, the back of her head falling against him. She had no answer to give him. He knew it.

_Of course she doesn't know. She has nothing but enemies. The King. The guards. You._

Then, a sound he knew very well. Baying. When he whipped his head to his right, the clouded moonlight shone across the ruin of skin on the left side of his face. He bared his teeth, looking. They had opened the kennels.

_So, they've set the dogs on the Hound, then. _

Bitterly, he sneered at the irony of it, his mouth twisting into a grinding laugh that made the little bird look up, anxious. The howling rose again into the night, and he kicked Stranger hard, snarling as the beast tore wildly into a gallop. The Hound's arms were on either side of the girl as he gripped the reins, trying to keep her to his chest while she jostled in the saddle. The wind had her hair, and it whipped against his jaw, his eyes. Hard and mad, they rode, flying into the thick of the trees, on and on. He felt her clutching him. Her nails bit into his thighs, frozen there in panic.

Frenzied, Stranger screamed. His breath a hot mist, he dashed between branches, hooves pummeling the uneven ground. The wood was becoming thinner now, the trees young and slender as they neared the edge. Then the gate was there. The Hound ripped his sword from the scabbard at his hip, and the steel sang out, glinting silver, tarnished by murky streaks of blood. All he saw was movement as the gatekeeper ran to close them off, and he swung. The lad never made it to the portcullis. As they bolted through, his body fell to its knees, the head slipping off in their wake.


	6. Chapter 6

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Sorry for the wait! I'm back in school now (Spring Break is over) and updates are coming a little slower. This is a longer chapter. Less action, but I felt it necessary._

_-Please continue to leave reviews. It means the world to me and keeps me writing. You all are driving my story._

_-Thank you so much for reading._

_-Any other story info (age adjustments and other minor changes) is listed at the top of Chapter 1._

* * *

CHAPTER 6

Sansa didn't know how long they had ridden. Her mind spun with messy, rambling thoughts, her ears rang, and with every lurching step of the massive destrier beneath her, her head and body ached fiercely. For all she knew, it could have been hours ago that they'd passed through the last portcullis ringing the Red Keep and tore off toward the Kingswood. Had they stopped to water the horse, and she hadn't noticed? How far had they gotten from the Keep? It didn't matter. It was done, and all she could do was hold tight and try to keep still her terror.

They had slowed to a canter as the dawn crept over them, and the sky was a wash of pale pinks and oranges. There was something calm and clean about the break of morning. It seemed as though, regardless of what horror she might be experiencing, the rising of the morning sun was always a kind, beautiful thing. She watched it come up through puffy, half-closed eyes, a brilliant blood orange beyond the trees. Lost in the sight, she looked until her eyelids began to droop and her head bent forward. Then she jerked it upright again. She felt the Hound's chin brush the crown of her head.

"We'll stop soon," she heard him say. She noticed the depth of his baritone more than ever before, being so close to his chest. In spite of its rough quality, it had a softness to it just now. For a moment, she was less afraid, but then she remembered who it was, sitting just behind her, his iron arm tucked stiff around her middle. She couldn't get down and away if she tried, and not only because of her sore, swimming head. If he chose to harm her, there would be nothing she could do.

Even still, Sansa felt an eerie sense of safety, much as she had during those spare moments in King's Landing, when the Hound had stepped aside from his master to drape her beaten body with his own cloak, or to dab carefully at her bleeding lip. She kept a vivid memory of that strange occasion, puzzled by what elusive significance it must have had. She had almost flinched when the big hand came up towards her face that day, but had found herself staring up at him, awed by his delicacy with the handkerchief. Then it was gone, and he'd become the Hound once more, with all of his sneers and snarls.

Now, her lip hurt again, and worse. If she moved her mouth at all, the soreness rivaled that in her head, and she kept running her tongue over it, tasting the coppery blood that had mostly clotted. To stay awake, she found herself looking down at the Hound's left hand, studying it as it held the reins loosely. His knuckles were sharp, the fingers long and powerful, and there were small white scars scattered across the veins and tendons. He had a lump of muscle pocketed between his thumb and forefinger that bunched every time he changed his grip.

When Sansa was a little girl, she had traced her fingertips along her father's hands once, and had found that same lump by his right thumb. She had asked what it was, since she didn't have anything like that. She'd thought he had hurt himself somehow, but he told her, _'That's my sword hand. It's a muscle, from gripping the hilt. It's bigger than the one on my other hand, see?'_

She wasn't a girl anymore. She'd been a woman for several years now, though she didn't feel like one. Her child's days at Winterfell seemed so far away, yet in King's Landing, she had sometimes felt determined to refuse her own womanhood and remain blind in a guise of old innocence. She had felt safer that way, then. But not now. Now, she felt cold and hollow, as if some dark thing had come along and carved any remaining naivety out with a jagged spoon, replacing it with grief, pain, fear. She felt broken.

Her vision blurred, and again, her head was bowing down. Her temple pounded where Ser Meryn had hit her that last time, and she took her fingers from where they were unknowingly holding fast to the Hound's pant leg, bringing them up to rub lightly at the spot. It only made her shoulder hurt worse, and her hand dropped helplessly to the saddle after just a few seconds. She worried with a pang of dread whether she had somehow permanently damaged the socket when she had panicked in the dungeons. She remembered some awful pain that struck her as she wrenched away from the wall, after her fears of being murdered were confirmed by her captors. Her dead captors.

She had only _heard _them die, but the sounds were still a fresh, disquieting splinter in her memory. How had the Hound killed the man who stood before her in the dark? She swore he had broken the man's neck; she had heard the bones grind together, and then that awful _pop_. Could he have done that with just his hands? Suddenly, she had a deep feeling of nausea as she pictured him doing that to her, squeezing his massive palms against her ears and then twisting, quick and…

He had her forearm in his hand. In that moment, it didn't look like a hand that would hurt her. She looked at it, seeing his large fingers wrapped loose around her soft skin, still fair as porcelain beneath the dust and filth. _Like a little glass doll_, she thought cynically. _I broke one once. They're not hard to break._ She realized she wasn't listening to him. He was talking in her ear, but it sounded as it would if she was underwater. Then she shook her head rapidly, opening her eyes, lifting her tired head, and the words cleared up.

"…'til I get these cuts wrapped up. Don't throw your arms around."

"I think…" She found it surprisingly hard to speak, and her voice came out sounding much weaker and quieter than she had intended. She was dizzy again, seeing little black dots in her vision that came and went with the rhythm of the horse. Unable to find the simple words to explain her pain, she just mumbled, "I can't keep my arm up."

He let go of her arm then, and she felt his hand on the bare skin of her shoulder. It startled her at first, and she flinched, forgetting that she wore a sort of crude robe made of cloak that left her shoulders and arms naked. Goosebumps rippled across her skin at the thought of such closeness, but he muttered, "You're alright," at her, and she began to see the impracticality of caring. She had nearly died, _should_ be dead, and was alone in the forest with one of the most feared killers in the Seven Kingdoms. If she had been wearing some frilly frock at this moment, the world would have only been less sensible that it already was.

She decided she must be going mad. She couldn't speak properly, could barely see, and yet couldn't stop running hundreds of loud, tangled thoughts through a shocked subconscious, which was trapped in a body wracked with pain. It was only when she felt the heat coming through his palm that her shoulders fell, the muscles of her back began to let go, and her head hung forward again. His fingers were like warm steel as they molded her shoulder, pressing and grabbing at it, looking for some misalignment. Grimly, he asked her, "There?"

She must have made some noise that he took for an answer because he began kneading it slowly. Her eyes drifted closed and open again, watching Stranger's hooves moving below until her gaze got misty and the tightness came to her chest and she let out the smallest of sobs. The hand moved to her other shoulder, and she let slip another little cry she'd been holding back for hours, until her back was shaking with quiet weeping. The Hound said not a word and let her cry, his arm around her midsection and his other hand massaging steadily. For a time, Stranger was left to find his own way.

…

The Hound's eyes were fierce, alert, and searching through the trees. The silence of the morning stretched on, but he seemed always ready to go back to the horse and take off again. They had stopped next to some old hunter's stand, a little wooden shack made of poor, twisted planks sitting in a clearing. She had been left on the horse while the Hound searched around, knocking the little door of the stand inward with his boot and leaning in to peer inside. He reemerged holding two rusted arrows that had been left in the dirt, and he tossed them into the brush as he went back to Stranger.

Sansa just looked groggily at him, her eyes red. Then, his big hands were on her, pulling her down and carrying her with an ease that almost scared her. The ribs of her left side ached with every movement, and she was grateful when he set her down on a soft patch of moss, where she could lean against the trunk of a fallen tree. The bark scratched at her bare shoulders, but it felt better not to be on horseback. The Hound crouched before her, his temples and jaw line stirring visibly as he ground his teeth together behind the blank, close-lipped expression he wore. He was fumbling with her hands, turning them this way and that as he looked at the raw pink stripes that marred her wrists. He wouldn't look at her face, not once. Then he was up again, tethering Stranger to a limb and taking down saddlebags.

Sansa closed her eyes. It was just for a moment, she thought, but when they opened again, the bags had been partially unloaded, and the Hound was low to the ground, blowing at a pile of leaves and small sticks. When a tiny flame leapt to life, he rose and scooted quickly away from it, only dealing with the fire as long as he had to. Even when he began tossing larger sticks onto the crackling pile, he did so from an excessive distance.

Her head dipped and darted up again, her eyes burning, and his voice fell into her head as he spoke, sounding far away. "Best sleep some, girl, when you can." When she only peered at him, determined to keep the sleep away, the expression he met her with was gloomy and frustrated. "If I'd wanted to harm you, whether you were awake wouldn't have made any difference," he pointed out. "Told you I wouldn't, and I won't."

She watched him filling a miniature cast iron pot with something from a skin, and then her head rolled to the side and she felt herself drifting.

When she came back around, she felt hands on her and jerked her head away, knocking the back of it into the tree as she murmured a sound of protest. Her head spun from the meager impact, and she felt it cradled in his hand. He was looking down at her, the scarring around the left of his mouth tightening with his grimace. "Steady," he said. Dark hair had fallen around his cheekbones, shielding the rest of the terrible burned skin from her view.

"What are y-" she started, but he gave her a look that was level and waiting. It was almost patience. She went still, watching his hand as he brought it up to her eyebrow, the ripped scrap of cloak soaked crimson in his fingers. She felt the heat before it even touched her, and squeezed her eyes shut as fire shot through the small cut in her brow. She yelped, and then felt the oddest thing; his free hand had gone to her cheek, coarse and calloused, but it was put there to _comfort_ her. It was a kindness, something she hadn't been certain the Hound truly had.

She made herself look again, and his eyes were somber as he examined her face, his thumb padding gently at the swollen skin around one of her eyes, then at the bruising along her jaw. It pained him to look, she realized. "Be still," he rumbled, and she did as she was told, looking straight ahead while he inspected her. She cried out when he brushed her nose, and his brow gathered. "Here?" She nodded once, and he touched the bridge.

"It hurts," she told him.

The Hound dropped his hand away and soaked the rag again. "Could be broken," he said, and Sansa stared dimly at him, shocked at the thought. She had never broken a bone before. He put a hand on the crown of her head to keep her still and shook the excess droplets from the cloth. "If it is, it'll heal on its own. I've broken mine three or four times. Don't touch it." When he pressed the hot wine to the gash in her lower lip, her eyes welled with tears from the stinging, but she didn't move. It took him longer to clean it, dragging the fabric as gingerly as he could across the cut, wiping away blood and dust that was hours old.

Hanging the rag upon the edge of the steaming pot of wine on the ground, he picked up a ceramic cup, offering it. "Water." She hadn't realized how thirsty she was. Her shoulders felt much better now, and she raised her hands to pull the cup to her, trapping his fingers against it while she drank in huge, hurried gulps. "Slow," he warned her. "You'll choke yourself."

When she was done, he took the cup away and started his work on her wrists. It was more painful than the little wounds on her face had been, but she locked her jaw in place and took it without complaint, only wincing and wiping small tears against her shoulder as they emerged. He was pouring cool water freely over the lacerations to clean them out when she spoke up, saying softly, "You're…kind." She hadn't meant to, but when she said it, the amazement in her voice was made apparent. Embarrassed, she tried to remedy that with a hasty, "Thank you."

He stopped and looked up, his gray eyes surprisingly clear in the morning light. His face was difficult to read, portraying something between guilt and annoyance. Then his hair fell back away from the massive scar that made him look half a monster, and when he noticed, he angled that side away from her almost instantly. Sansa thought he looked as if he was going to say something, but he changed his mind, and his focus went back to what he was doing. He finished by cutting the wine-drenched cloth into two narrow strips with his dagger, and tied them around each of her wrists to soak. The alcohol burned badly against the cuts, and she bared her teeth at the pain of it. "I know," he said. "Leave them on." And that was all.

He pressed a hand to his knee and grunted to his feet, taking the pot of wine with him. It was dizzying, seeing how he towered over her, blocking the sunlight for a moment as he lumbered away. He was digging into a saddlebag again. "Hungry?"

She shook her head, thinking that if she ate anything, her stomach might just toss it up again. She had felt sick ever since the moment she was tied to the wall of the cell, like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

The Hound squatted over the bag and put away the cast iron pot and the water, leaving the wine out so he could take a long pull. He looked as if he wanted a good deal more, but then stuffed it away as well, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. "I don't know if we're being pursued yet," he rasped, "but I doubt I was seen by anyone at the Keep. Well, anyone still alive." Sansa frowned at that last bit, but the Hound went on, sounding tired. "That gives us a head-start, if we're lucky. But we need to keep moving 'til nightfall. Ought to find you some clothes. I know this area. Might be I'll buy some. Or steal 'em, one."

Sansa wrung her hands, exhausted and confused. "To where?"

"What?"

"You said we could have a head-start, but to where?"

"I told you I'd take you t'your family, didn't I? In your room."

"Oh." She didn't want to remember what had happened in her room. "You seemed angry then, so I didn't know if—"

By the look on his face, he wasn't looking to dwell on it either, and he interrupted her. "I'll take you, but I don't know when I'll get you there. Depends on where _there_ is. The Starks have flung themselves all about the Seven bloody Kingdoms, and your wolf brother's made war. He's running around playing at battles, not looking for you."

His statement stung her, and she could feel redness creeping into her cheeks as she ventured, "We could send a raven," Her voice was sounding smaller all the time.

"Why? Have you got one hiding in that cloak?"

She bit her lip at the biting jest, shook her head, and looked at her feet sitting in the dirt. She still had one slipper on.

_He's right. That was stupid._

There was a lengthy quiet, and the Hound seemed to remember himself. He gentled his tone some, telling her, "Best we just keep away from the King for now, and anyone else. You're in no shape for heavy travel." With that, he picked up a bag and went to pack Stranger. Sansa was watching him tug at leather straps and brush his hand down the horse's back leg when he turned to look at her again. "What happened…in the dungeons…" Her blood ran cold, and she looked away from him, but his words were simple, direct. "It'll get easier for you. It'll scar." For an instant, he looked almost in pain, but then he faced the horse, leaving her to drown in the silence that followed.


	7. Chapter 7

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Sorry for the wait! What an awful few weeks this has been. I've reached mid-semester crunch time at school, so lot's of papers, etc., and then my laptop busted! It was a very old machine, and had been acting weird for some time. SO, I had to invest in a brand new laptop, which I am using now, and it took forrrevverrr to ship out to me._

_-Anyway, I'm going to post Chapters 7 and 8 back-to-back since you've had to wait. Chapter 7 is a mild little scene in the woods, and 8 is centered more on memory. I promise you there will be more action in the future, but right now, character development feels important._

_-Thank you so much for waiting so patiently. It's difficult balancing this with school. Please enjoy! I await your much-appreciated reviews!_

* * *

CHAPTER 7

There was smoke, and it was close. He could smell it. It wasn't the ominous, stinking smoke of war and pillage, but a wood fire. The girl rode in front of him, half-asleep in the saddle, her head hanging and her tangled hair pulled around one shoulder. He could see the knots of her spine at the base of her neck as she swayed slowly. Eyes tracing the thinning trees, he found the edge of the forest and guided Stranger to follow it while the smell grew stronger. There was more to it now; food cooking, livestock, animal shit. He knew there was no town here, so far from the road. Just a house, most like.

The girl looked up, and the Hound shifted behind her, reminding her he was there so she wouldn't startle. "Smell that?" he asked her.

She tried, but it came out as a sniffle through her swollen nose. "What is it?"

"Cook fire. And sheep, maybe."

"I only see trees." Her voice was exhausted. She hadn't truly slept, he could tell. She'd only been allowing herself dazed cat naps, still too raw and fretful to let go.

"Aye, but there's a farm beyond them," he said.

"How do you know?"

"My nose is better than my eyes."

She didn't argue with that and let loose a long, fragile sigh, straightening some. Surely, her back was aching from being bowed over like that, and true enough, she let herself lean against his mailed jerkin, just slightly. The sun had climbed a bit, and mid-morning was upon them as they moved through on the big courser. When they came upon a tiny stone well, he knew he had been right. There was a spring here, and good land for growing. The scent of roasting meat was making his belly rumble, and he left the bird alone on Stranger while he dismounted and tied the beast, turning to walk off into the trees.

"Ser," he heard her chirp after him, but he didn't stop.

"No 'Ser'."

"But—"

"I'll be back, girl."

When he was well into a thicket, he relieved himself of what was left of the night's wine. Then he trampled to the edge of the trees to get a look at the fields beyond. The column of smoke was there, rising from the other side of a grassy slope, and he heard the bleating of goats. From here, all he could see was the shingled roof of the place, and he thought long on his course of action before returning to the horse.

The girl was trying to get down, but her elbows were shaky as she gripped the saddle's horn, and the cloak she wore was near coming loose by the time he got to her. She almost started to push him away when he went to scoop her up, but ended up muttering a tiny, "Thank you," as he pulled her off and set her feet on the ground. He ignored the courtesy, only watching her as she took a few tentative steps, her fingers pulling the makeshift garment more snugly under her arms.

The Hound stepped closer to her when she place a hand on the edge of the well and peered down into it. "Don't go falling in," he warned gruffly. She only glanced at him, and then turned to sit on the stones, her arms hugging around her middle. Going to rummage in one of the saddle bags, he pulled out a heel of bread and set it between his teeth, leaving it there while he filled his cast iron pot with water for Stranger. He set it down for the destrier and then ripped off a bite of the bread as he straightened.

"Here." He offered her the rest of it, but she shook her head solemnly. "Best eat something," he told her, chewing. "I've got cheese too. And salt pork, if you want it."

"I don't think I can. My stomach…thank you, no." She began to untangle her hair with her fingers and stepped out of her one remaining slipper to sit barefoot. Her collar bone and one of her eyes had gone purple and yellow, the bruises just beginning to ripen. The gashes that split her bottom lip and left eyebrow looked clean enough, but he knew they would leave scars. The wounds looked so unnatural against her porcelain skin, it left him grimacing and his appetite dead as he shoved the bread back into a sack within the leather bag.

_This shouldn't have happened. Not to her._

He was re-positioning his sword belt and simmering in his deepening resentment when he heard her ask, "Are you going to the farm?"

"Aye." He didn't look at her.

"And I'm to stay here."

Grunting lightly, he tightened the fastenings so the scabbard was strapped snugly against his broad back. "You'll not go with _me_. And if you run off and get yourself caught—"

"Alone?"

His burned side tightened with his frown, and he looked up to see the anxiety hiding beneath the blue of her eyes. "You're safer here in the wood than anywhere near prying eyes and running mouths." He went to her, handed her the waterskin. "But if someone comes, you'll ride to the farm." He pointed to the edge of the tree line and made sure she put the water down long enough to get a good look. "There. You'll see the smoke."

When the girl glanced over at Stranger, she looked as if she'd swallowed a spider. "I can't ride him, not by myself."

"You can if you're being hunted. You will."

"Must you go?"

"Do you want clothes?"

Tracing her tongue along the cut at her lip, she thought about that, and looked anxiously up at him as she handed the waterskin back. "I'm afraid," she admitted. Her chin faltered with the faintest tremble.

Some instinct made him want to lay his hand atop her head and tell her she shouldn't be, but that would be a lie, and he hated liars. So he did nothing but offer his hand so she could pull herself up. "I won't be long. Never am."

…

The sky was cloudless as he made his approach, the heels of his boots biting into grass still soggy from the rains of the previous night. They would have a few clear days ahead of them, at least. He was near the base of the hill when he caught sight of a woman squatting over a wash basin by the grain shed, her weathered hands raking wet rags against a washboard. She was small and dumpy, her mousy brown hair tied into a knot, and she wiped an arm across her forehead before going back to her scrubbing. Goats wandered within a small fenced-in yard, eating and crying and raking their horns against the wooden posts.

The Hound squinted against the morning glare. He knew his scars would be gruesome in this light and on most days, he wouldn't have cared whether he frightened some old farmer's wife, but just now he was looking to negotiate. Doing his best to keep a thin section of dark hair over the worst of the burns, he shrugged at the light weight of the roughspun sack on his shoulder and turned to glance back up the hill.

It had taken some oats and sweet grain to gentle Stranger's suspicions, but the beast had been calm enough when he left them. He'd put the girl back in the saddle, the reins tied loosely to a limb. Pulling just right would unravel the knot easily if they were spooked. He only hoped she would have the sense to take the advice given and make the horse go her way if it came to that, lest he sense his rider's fear and throw her off. Stranger wasn't much of a threat while he was tied, just so long as she kept her fingers to herself.

_Be hard, little bird. Don't you let him throw you._

The woman saw him and there was no helping that. She let the wet clothes slip into the soapy water and rushed into the house straight away, returning moments later with her man. The husband was slim and small boned, his wiry hand gripping a wood axe as the Hound walked along the goat fence toward them. He left quite a bit of space between them as he stopped by their front step.

The woman spoke first. "Fine morning, Ser," she said flatly. "What do you want here?" It wasn't ill-mannered, but not a welcome either. Loose wisps of gray-flecked hair breezed across her forehead, and she looked irritated as she swiped at them. Her husband just scowled at him, but his eyes were wide with nerves.

The Hound minced no words. "I'm in need of a few of your things, and I've got the coin for them. Then I'm gone."

The man looked him up and down, his eyes lingering on the tiny bag of coppers and silvers hanging from the Hound's belt. He'd only brought a spare amount for this, but it was enough to hook the eyes of any goat farmer. Still, the man's distrust was apparent. "This isn't a market. You can take yourself and your fine bloodied armor up the road to Tumbleton. They'll take your stags."

"Be easy," the Hound rasped a warning. He could tell by the way the farmer was peering at him that he'd been recognized. The wife either didn't know or didn't care. She watched him with worn, steady eyes and crossed her arms across her great bosom. The Hound glanced at the goat yard. "I expect that's where you sell your meat and milk. You'd make a better profit off me. Half my purse is worth more than this whole bloody farm."

"He has you," the woman pointed out. Her probing gaze was loaded, but not with fear. She was a tough old thing. "The market's likely closed today besides, what with a battle going on in the night. Couple of drunks passed through at dawn, said Blackwater Bay's afire."

Her husband jerked a nod at the Hound. "He'd know. Come from King's Landing, I'd bet."

The Hound took a step forward then, his tone set at a growl. "I've got coin, I said, but not patience. Best you don't test that."

"We don't want trouble," the farmer's wife assured him. She looked at her husband like he was naught more than a braying aurochs, and back to their visitor. "What is it you n—"

The farmer wasn't having it. "I know who you are," he said. His words carried something jumping between tenacity and fear. "…and I want you off my farm."

His wife gripped his elbow like she would a child, making him flush at his own boldness. "Don't be a fool, Boinn," she hissed. "Take the man's coin. If he'd come to bring us trouble, he'd have cut us both down."

"Your woman's got a head on her shoulders," the Hound grunted.

She stepped in front of the farmer, wiping her hands on her dirtied apron. "Forgive my husband, m'lord. He doesn't always know his death when he sees it."

"Woman, I swear—" the goat farmer started up again, but she stopped him cold.

"You swear nothin'. Go and sharpen that axe b'fore you make a dent in something. Can't even cut wood properly." With that, she left him gaping on the porch, and waddled down the front step to peer curiously up at the Hound. There was a flicker of alarm in her eyes when she got a real look at the left side of his face, but then it was gone, settled into a hard frown. "I don't know what you've come from, but I trust you'll treat us fair, Ser. We can spare a little, but not much more."

"I'm no _Ser. _Told you I'd pay you and be on my way. You'll get what you're owed."

She nodded. "What'll you need then?"

With the woman's physical dimensions, the Hound could see that any garments of hers would be useless for the Stark girl. He'd be better off delivering her a grain sack. "Clothes and shoes, for a start." The odd look she gave him made him add, "Not for me."

"I'd say not." The farmer's wife's grin was a wry, wicked thing, her teeth a ruin of age and hardship. "It'd take three of my husband to fill out that jerkin." That sent Boinn, as she'd called him, stalking down from the porch and off to the grain shed, seemingly indifferent to whether anything happened to his toad of a wife.

The Hound watched him go with a sneer that stirred his scars hideously, and he shifted the sack slung over his shoulder. "What've you got that's small?"

She was incredulous. "You haven't a _child_ with you…"

"Not that kind of small."

"Not fond of details are you?" She tilted her face up at him, the sides of her thin mouth indented with deep lines. "I've a good imagination, but my talent for mind readin' is poorly. How tall?"

"Here." He leveled a hand in the air to show the girl's height, and was almost taken aback to remember just how little she was, only coming up to his chest, and barely that. The women lifted a sparse eyebrow at him, and she held the look for a good while before gesturing him inside. Stooping to clear the doorway, he followed her in and glanced about as the floorboards complained beneath his weight.

"I had a son," the woman was saying as she scurried off to some tiny room and left him by the entryway. "Good boy, about that tall when he went off to join the City Watch." The Hound could hear her rifling around, opening drawers and making all sorts of racket. She nearly had to yell over her own hubbub to be heard. "Been gone years and years now, killed in one of King Robert's 'orrible bread riots. That's what's got me husband sour. Still hates that city, hates anyone who comes out of it."

The Hound couldn't understand why she was talking at him like this. Most would have kept quiet and done what he'd asked in a hurry, either out of want for gold or just fear. Well, fear was almost always involved. This one, though, she was waddling about like a hen, talking at him the way his father's cook had when he was a boy.

She reemerged with a folded pile of linen, leather, and wool, leaving the door to the bedroom open while she set the clothes on a tiny table in what must have been the kitchen. It was difficult to tell one part of the house from another, as one large space seemed to make up the kitchen, the hearth, and the wash room. "Was always skinny for his age, took after his father."

She unfolded a pair of thick cloth trousers and held them up for him to see. The thighs and shins were overlaid with sections of boiled leather, and by some luck, the waist had a drawstring sewn into it. They were hunter's garb, probably the finest pair the boy had owned before he went to King's Landing. "It'll do," he said.

"Ah, and boots." Faster than she looked, she vanished into the bedroom again. "What of these?"

The Hound leaned to where he could glimpse in after her. Two hay-stuffed mattresses lay on the dusty floor, and the only furnishings were an oaken chest and a handmade bureau of drawers. Atop the bureau sat a small hair comb of carved bone and a whittling knife. The two items showed the sad extent of the couple's leisure time. Elbow-deep in the oaken chest, the farmer's wife groaned like a rusted hinge as she straightened up holding a pair of well-used boots with iron clasps up the sides. He stepped in to take one from her, and chewed on the insides of his mouth out of habit as he turned it over. The boots were a few sizes too big, but they'd protect the bird's feet at least, until they could find better.

"You can fetch the lad and have 'im try them out if you like, see if they're big enough," the woman offered. "My boy was a little small for his age." He must have betrayed his doubt then, for she had that unsettling, perceptive glint to her dull brown eyes again. "Or too big, as it might be."

He handed the boot back to her. "They'll do." She went to put them on the table with the other clothes, and the Hound glanced once more at the hair comb. He had half a mind to swipe it, but thought better of it and turned to find the farmer's wife watching him from the doorway.

"Will your companion be needin' that?" she wondered. "I wouldn't miss it, not terribly." The Hound didn't like the hint of a smile pulling at her mouth, didn't like those grinning eyes. She saw that, and retreated back to the kitchen without an answer. Grimly, he lumbered after her.

_She knows it's a girl you've got. You should kill them both._

In the hearth, a great pot hung from a hook, its contents intoxicating as the smell sweetened the room. Beyond the open entryway, the skinny farmer was feeding his goats in the yard. It was an odd thing, how the simple lives of the smallfolk seemed so disconnected from the ongoing war of would-be kings, at least until it arrived on their doorstep. Then, so easily, the whole of their livelihood could be wrecked beneath the boots of ravenous bannermen.

The woman was busy again, unfolding the clothes and shaking them out, only to refold and place them just-so over a square of linen. "That's my goat stew there, in an onion broth with carrots," she told him. "You don't look badly fed, but the runt you're hiding might well be."

"You'd do well to control that tongue of yours." His eyes were burning now, and his nostrils flared, a warning that made her stare.

"I meant nothing by it," she insisted, but her fright was gone. Some women were just too old to waste time being afraid. "I don't much care who you 'ave with you, long as they're fed." She didn't bother asking this time, but went to a cupboard for a lidded clay kettle and spooned it full of soup.


	8. Chapter 8

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-So, for this bit, I've really blended things between the book and the HBO show. When our Hound reminisces (or broods, really) about meeting Sansa Stark in Winterfell, I used the Hound/Illyn Payne/Sansa scene from the show as my guide (because I liked it more, frankly). For the tourny flashback, I took the jousting bit directly from the book, where the Hound did beat Renly Baratheon and then made a bit of a show with his golden antler. However, the feast at the Pavilion is entirely made up. The feast did happen in the GRRM version, but I just kept the seating arrangement and thought the rest up on a whim (Sandor's role, the dance, etc)._

_-About the dance: In total-monarchy Europe, it was common for the daughters of respected guests to perform music and dance for the royals in court. I thought this was a cool idea and went with it. To write the scene, I used part of the Elizabeth soundtrack, called "Coronation Banquet". SO, if you want to hear the song for the dance performed by Sansa and the other girls, look it up! It shows up around 5 minutes into the full piece._

_-Oh. And yeah, I keep calling him the Hound rather than "Sandor" for my own reasons, but that will likely change as we go, so... ahem. THANK YOU FOR STICKING AROUND!_

_*Flashback from the tourney-on is written in italics. It is not happening in the present, but is stictly memory._

* * *

**CHAPTER 8**

The roughspun sack was significantly heavier when he made his way back up the hill, and he felt the heat of the soup kettle on his back, seeping right through the cloth and mail. He'd paid the farmers handsomely, more than he'd planned to, but it was still so little to him, he'd hardly miss the coin. He could still feel the old wife's fearless eyes and craggy smile, and it made him think of his father's damned cook again.

Once or twice, when he was younger, he might have even missed the old biddy. She'd been the only one at Clegane Hall who hadn't treated him any differently after the incident. She used to throw lumps of stale dough at him when he'd run through the kitchens to skid barefoot across the floor when it was covered in flour. It was one of the few times he'd run for the fun of it, rather than from Gregor.

Crackling his way over leaves and branches, he made his way back into the shelter of the trees, and his shoulders loosened. It wasn't a long walk. He spotted the girl long before she heard him coming, her long hair a glossy blaze in the dusky green of the wood. He'd have to do something about that, he realized.

_You shouldn't. She's lost all else._

Yet, he knew he would. The hair had to go. The thought made him frown and halt his steps, watching her through the distant brambles. Stranger was pawing, yanking at a tuft of sweet moss while the girl hunched over his mane. She had a hand draped across the horse's broad neck, her palm stroking it slowly. That hair of hers was wild now, falling across her back and shoulder in a waterfall of frazzled waves, but it still shone in the sunlight feeding through the canopy.

It was the thing that had fascinated him when King Robert's party was leaving Winterfell. He'd seen her copper tresses from across the yard, and felt drawn like a cat to a shiny bauble. She had been begging the pardon of Illyn Payne, of all the knightly curs wandering about. The Hound had waited just long enough for her to become nervous, the galling purity of her soft speech emboldening him, and then he'd clamped a brazen hand on her shoulder, making her look at him for the first time.

She couldn't, of course, and had dropped her eyes when he told her that Payne was lacking a tongue. She'd spoken to him the same as she would anyone else, though, and even smiled a bit when he made his crack about being afraid of the tongueless executioner himself. He had almost appreciated that moment of authenticity, but then the Prince slithered to her side and she became naught but lying smiles and artificial courtesy, from then on.

In court, her irksome little gasps and vexing manners had only tempted him into deeper cynicism, leaving him caught somewhere between hating her meager reactions and wanting to goad them out of her again. He'd frightened her from the start, and still did, but he couldn't let her alone like he did all the others who stared up at him, repulsed. No, he just couldn't spare her, the Prince's little talking sparrow.

_No one could._

But she hadn't spared him either. Just when he'd grown accustomed to her empty graces, she'd stab him with some small sincerity, an expression of genuine gratitude or a candid glance. Always, he would knock it out of the stupid girl with his cutting mockery, but she just wouldn't harden. She had kept some little lamp burning in her eyes, thought the others couldn't see. She was wrong. He saw them beat her bloody because of it, saw them strip her before the court, had to stop her killing the King and herself. It was madness, and it had fed into the Hound like a poison, knocking him into a vexation that he still couldn't shake.

It was the fucking tourney that did him in. The tourney had begun his losing battle with the captive bird of the King.

**…**

_During the Hand's tourney, the Hound unhorsed Renly Baratheon. When the young stag's golden antler snapped off of his helm, the Hound caught Sansa Stark gasping for fear that the King's little brother might have broken his neck. Renly got to his feet, though, and the Hound glanced through his visor at the Stark girl again before picking the antler up and tossing it into the crowd. The tourney-goers began to fight viciously over the trinket for its gold, and when he looked at the bird next, she was gawking at them, bewildered by the chaos. He liked getting a rise out of her like that; watching her embarrassed reactions to the mummer's farce that was the world._

_It wasn't until the bloody Knight of Flowers hoisted his arm and named him victor that the Hound felt the disquieting pang of eyes on him. Sansa Stark stood right in the front of the stands with Lord Eddard, her girlish smile lighting up her face as she clapped so courteously for his win. He could feel the muscles beneath the scar twitching as he spat at the ground, tearing away from Tyrell and striding off to claim his purse._

_For the feast that night, the King's Pavilion became a rowdy storm of food and song, with men of false honor and women of gentle birth lounging in their best garb like a sea of colorful cattle, laughing and drinking and chewing their cud. The Hound stood his vigil behind the Prince, as always, one hand on his sword belt and eyes on the crowd. The Stark girl and her septa had been placed by Joffrey, a seat of honor for his lucky betrothed. She fawned over the boy, smiled sweetly, went out of her way to please him, but anyone with eyes could see that the grief over her wolf was still raw and fresh. Between bites, she'd look down at her plate, staring into nothing amidst the blabbering merriment around her, and then lift her head again, bright as spring, chatty and polite, and oh so rehearsed. Her feigned, jingling laughter had irritated the Hound so, he left the familiar post to keep watch over the wine casks along the wall, as far from the royals and highborns as he could get without abandoning his liege._

_He'd only gotten halfway into his cup when entertainers flooded the floor, jugglers and magicians, fools and acrobats. It was the fire dancers he hated. They cart-wheeled through blazing hoops, twirled torches that spit glowing embers into the gasping audience, and blew flames into the air until the Hound was sure they'd set the domed ceiling ablaze. By the time they'd finished, his knuckles where strained and white on the grip of his sword._

_When he glanced up at the high seats, the Stark girl was gone. Her septa sat awkwardly by the empty seat, and Joffrey was sitting in a bored lump, his arms crossed haughtily over his chest. The King was deep in his wine now, red-faced and hooting like an ape. The Queen, though, held her attention elsewhere. Her look was keen and cat-like as she gazed across the pavilion, and the Hound followed her line of sight to a group of ten or twelve girls standing in a hidden cluster behind the musicians' stage. The little bird's copper head was unmistakable. She had donned a crown of vines and blue flowers. The rest of the maids wore matching wreaths, and they were all fussing about with one another, fluffing their silk skirts and raking fingers through their hair. The Hound straightened, drained his cup, and left it atop a wine keg as he lumbered his way back to the Prince._

"_I'm tired of all this," Joffrey was complaining. "There you are, dog. They're betting on fist fights outside, and I want to watch. Come with me."_

_The King ignored him, but Queen Cersei leaned down to hiss, "You'll stay here until you're excused. The feast honors the father of your betrothed."_

"_She's not even here. She ran off with Myrcella."_

"_The girls are to perform for us, sweetling, and you'll stay to receive it." Her acidic tone left the Prince no room to refuse, and he sat back in his chair like a disappointed child._

_Then the Queen rose from her seat, cueing a singer to step down from the performers' stage and rush to the center of the dancing floor. Knights and guests stepped out of his way, clearing the floor, and the din of voices fell as everyone turned to face Queen Cersei. The Hound couldn't abide singers. He snorted as the curly-headed little gnat dropped to one knee and clutched his harp to his chest, calling, "I pray our songs have pleased you and His Grace, my Queen." King Robert couldn't give a leech's shit about the songs. He was still snickering at some jape on his end of the table, utterly ignoring the silence around him. It made the Hound tilt the good side of his mouth in a doggish smirk._

_Cersei gave the singer a contrived smile and tossed her wrist to gesture at the other players on the stage. "Have your men play us a dance. We would see our guests enjoy the floor." Then, she sat, and the dancing space flooded with banqueters, mostly young knights and lords. The musicians struck up a lively bit of noise as commanded, and the Hound watched in brooding silence as the young girls fed into the crowd with their flower crowns. Myrcella was thrilled to be one of them, floating across the floor in her yellow silk with a smiling lord three times her age._

_The Stark girl had been left alone along the wall, and she wrung her hands anxiously until Loras Tyrell swept her up with all his nauseating knightly charm. His bloody armor was prettier than the bird's dress as he pulled her to the floor. If one didn't look too closely, it'd be easy to mistake them for two girls. Regardless, Sansa Stark was beaming. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes aglow as she was brought close and spun again and again._

_Joffrey was scowling. Some serving girl was refilling his cup as he remarked loudly over the music, "Sansa shouldn't smile so much. She makes him look a better dancer than he is."_

"_Perhaps _you _should have taken her to the floor then, Joffrey," his mother responded dryly._

"_Dancing is a bore, mother. Besides, it's more amusing from up here. It's too bad she doesn't know…" The Prince lowered his voice just enough so only his dog could hear the quip. "They say the Knight of Flowers is charmed more by _swords _than _flowers_, and perhaps my uncle's sword the most."_

_The Hound ripped out a laugh at that, the sound cutting like knives through the cheerful tones of the evening. He might have had some rebuttal for the Prince, but the dance had stopped and giddy couples were retreating to make way for some new amusement. Joffrey leaned forward and swirled wine in his goblet. "What's this?"_

_Dutifully, the Hound stepped back to stand against the wall behind the Prince, and the music began to wane until the only instrument in play was a sheepskin tabor. A boy drummed at it with sharp, militant strokes, the meter setting a shy, playful tone. Then came the light tinkling of a rhythmic bell, and the maids with their garland crowns began to form up. They took nimble, coordinated steps, appearing buoyant and weightless as they skipped quietly into formation. On the tips of their thumbs, they wore tiny bells, which chimed delicately which every flick of a wrist._

_Myrcella was the smallest in stature, leading in front and radiating with a proud grin. The other girls were older, and Sansa Stark stood with the eldest in the rear. Her cheeks were hot and pink as she performed her steps carefully in place, smiling demurely, her eyes flicking to and away from Joffrey. Each girl had her right hand laid lightly upon the shoulder of the girl beside her, and they bobbed with the rhythm of the bell until the tabor delivered a long anticipatory drum roll. Then they all went still and sank to the floor in a low curtsy to the King._

_The Hound looked on with disinterest, but his stormy gaze was pulled to the bird as she dipped with the others. In a second's glance, he caught the subtle swell of her petite bosom, fair skinned against the green silk of her bodice. His mouth twitched, eyes transfixed while she rose again. In that moment, she seemed the very image of innocence, a spectacle standing in a den of snakes that looked hungrily on, drinking her purity. In that moment, he was lost._

_With the jovial peal of a dulcimer, the other instruments burst into song again, and then the girls were all moving in striking unison, arms combing the air and hands flitting playfully as they stepped, skipped, spun. It was a harvest dance, one he'd seen Myrcella doing in the gardens before, but not with such grace. The northern girl's movements were flawless, her hair like a silken sunset as it flickered in the air with each turn of her head. The maidens drifted near the King's table, and the Hound's sullen glare moved with the Stark girl when she passed. She whirled and her skirt lifted some, revealing slender white feet, lithe and bare for the dance. Joffrey gave her an approving grin when she came close, one he might give some expensive new horse, and she blushed as she fell back into line._

_Then she caught the Hound watching her, and the flush fled from her cheeks. He saw the whites of her eyes before they cast down at the floor in an instant, her mouth forming a tight line as she missed a step, furrowed her brow, and stumbled back into her rhythm. Indignant, he looked away. His fist tightened at his side, and he felt the fingernails biting into his palm._

_When the performance came to an end, the girls bowed with dizzy smiles, their chests heaving with excitement as they straightened. The onlookers erupted. Their hooting applause was a storm in the Hound's ears, and his gut felt full of rocks as he stepped down from the royals' raised platform and headed for the wine. After he'd gotten half a goblet in his belly, he filled his wineskin and slid out of the pavilion to see about joining one of those wager fights outside._

**…**

He didn't yet know he had already lost.


	9. Chapter 9

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-This is a longer chapter. Sorry for the delays between updates. I'm in the heaviest, scariest part of the school semester, so please forgive me._

_-Again, your comments and critiques are VERY appreciated, as they inspire me to continue this venture. So, if you happen to read this far, please do let me know what you think. It has quite a big impact on my writing._

_-Any other story info (age adjustments and other minor changes) is listed at the top of Chapter 1. Thank you and enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 9**

When she heard the soft crackling, she sat straight up on the warhorse, her eyes wild. Stranger was massive, and sitting at this height sent her wavering before she reached out and grabbed at the knotted rein. One pull, and it would come loose. He had told her so. The racket was closer now, and she bristled, looking, looking.

_Let it be him._

Sansa hadn't wanted him to go because she was afraid, but then she had found herself glad when he was gone. She had opened up the saddlebags and looked in, trying not to move things too much. There was food, there were coins. For a moment, she had stared at the knot. _Stared_, as if she'd known just where she would go and how she would do it. It had been that icy, sunken feeling, deep in her chest that had forced up the truth, sharp and loud. She knew nothing, and if she ran, she'd be dead by the night. Then, from nowhere, there had been guilt, and she'd settled herself on the horse that had carried her away from death, waiting.

Now, the waiting was frantic, and she glanced toward the edge of the wood like he told her, to the farm. The noise was coming from there, and her fingers left the strap.

_It is._

The voice that came was terse and grating, but it was his. "Going somewhere with my horse?"

When his dark head ducked under a branch and into the clearing, her face fell into relief. She watched him warily as he rose to his full height. "I didn't know it was you."

"No, you didn't. Heard what I told you."

She nodded, looking him in the eyes. His shaggy hair had come clean away from the lumps and crevices of his scar, and it would have been easier not to look, but she did anyway. He was the one who glanced away, leaning his head to one side until something popped audibly in his neck. It made her wince.

"Got what I went for," he said, "though you won't like it." He shrugged a large sack off his shoulder, but he did it carefully, bringing out a kettle and a stoppered bottle first. He took them to the saddle, leaving the bag in the leaves for her to pick through herself. As he opened up one of the thick saddle bags to place the goods where they wouldn't spill, a lump leapt into her throat. If he saw that she had been meddling in it, she didn't know what he'd do.

Her mouth had been half-open, and she closed it when he looked up at her, sitting astride the great black beast with the cloak bunched beneath her and her slender shoulders poking up out of it. Her white legs hung naked from the knees down, and her feet were filthy. She must have looked almost tribal. "I've brought clothes," he told her. "Do you need to be lifted down?"

She looked, and the ground was a dizzying length away. Still, she muttered, "I don't think so." It took some reaching to get her toes in his low-set stirrup, but she managed it, and almost thought she might not fall off.

The Hound meandered over to the well and was looking down into it, uncorking a wineskin with his teeth. He was waiting for her, turning away should the cloak fall. The thought of that alarmed her, and she was deadly careful as she gripped the saddle horn, guiding a leg over the horse's broad back. She struggled some, but made no sound, and then her feet were on the ground.

Grabbing her primitive coverings up in her fists, she shuffled slowly to the open bag and dropped to her knees. When she pulled out a linen shirt and woolen vest, she set them aside on the ground and kept digging, shuddering at the throbbing pain at her left side. There was more, leather and thick stockings and boots, and she laid them all out neatly so she could find the rest more easily. Then her fingers raked at the base of the sack, feeling the hardness of the ground. Her eyes slid to the clothes sitting in the leaves. _Men's _clothes.

His rolling chuckle tore through her. He'd been standing over her like a cliff, right at her back. "That's all, bird."

She expected his smile to be menacing when she squinted up at him, but it wasn't. It was something else, something melancholy. The sun was up behind him, glaring out his burns. "Thank you for getting this," she said quietly and, with dignity, she gathered the clothes into her arms and left the boots behind.

He made no reply and went to sit on the edge of the well, tilting the rim of the wineskin against his lips. The scruff along his jaw was streaked with grime, and he still wore Kingsguard plate at his shoulders and forearms. His mail was stained with blood, dry and black. Suddenly, Sansa realized how _recently_ they'd left the castle. The green, screaming chaos of the night before seemed days ago, but no, it was close. Then she was very tired. Standing in place, she loosed a long, persistent yawn, before moving past the Hound to find a thicket. As she went, she heard him yawn as well, though his faded into a quiet sort of grumbling behind her.

No matter where she stood, she felt completely visible. _Here. You can dress here. This will do._ But it wouldn't. She moved from bush to brushwood and kept looking back, convinced that he could see her. After all that had happened, she couldn't understand why it mattered now, yet her stomach crawled with unease. Had he seen her in the dungeon? She couldn't be sure. _It was too dark. But the godswood…_

As she shuffled around, she heard the grit of his voice calling from the well. "Don't go too far."

_You're only dallying and he knows it. _Defeated, she stopped where she was and dropped the clothes at her feet, reaching up to fumble clumsily with the knot that held the cloak to her shoulder. Her voice was unbearably small as she requested, "Please don't come this way."

His laugh made her skin goose-pimple, but then she heard him clamoring through the wood as he made a point to wander off somewhere, far on the other side of the clearing. Sansa was quick, pulling the knot loose and letting the cloak fall to the ground. Somehow, being naked had become an awful, helpless feeling, and she took no time at all to step into the clean trousers and yank them up. They sagged around her hips until she cinched the drawstring, her fingers shaky and uncooperative while she tied a good knot.

At first, the feeling of fabric between her knees was almost foreign, but then it wasn't so different from the wool leggings she'd left at home. If she hadn't been repulsed by the thought of dressing like a boy, it might have felt liberating. Slipping on the linen shirt and tucking it into the trousers, she was disconcerted to find how it lay thinly across her breasts. For a moment, she had the selfish, impractical thought that her captor should have had the decency to find her some smallclothes.

_He didn't capture you, he saved you. And he let you choose, but you couldn't, and still can't._

Taking care to bend very slowly, the ache along her ribs gnawed at her as she retrieved the vest from the ground. When she unfolded it, something fell, and her lips parted with perplexity at the thing sitting there, nestled in rotting leaves that made it look terribly out of place. Delicately, she picked it up. The little hair comb was the color of bone, worn smooth, with a few of its teeth missing. Damaged as it was, it inspired a brief, appreciative smile as she slipped it into a trouser pocket. It seemed an odd thing for him to bring her, but she took it as another of his strange, undefinable kindnesses that she couldn't yet decipher.

The woolen vest fit more snugly than the big shirt beneath it, and it did quite well to smooth her chest over when she fastened it. Biting her lip, she looked down at herself. It was ghastly. Sections of thick protective leather clad her shins and thighs. Her bare toes were dusted with mud and grime from the dungeons. Her cheeks going hot with embarrassment, she felt suddenly disobedient, a woman grown standing shoeless in the forest, dressed in a man's clothes. When she saw her hands, a chilling sadness came over her. A fingernail had split down the middle and bled from being raked madly against the stone floor. Her wrists were still clad in wine-soaked cloth bandages, and she untied one of them to look at the glistening pink grooves.

She was hugging herself as she walked back. Exhaustion had her, and when her soft feet happened across a spiked bramble, she stumbled and nearly fell. In the clearing, Stranger was tossing his mane, and Sansa moved around him in a wide arc as she went to sit by the well. The two of them were watching each other warily when the Hound came looming out of the trees.

_By gods, he can be quiet._

His mail and padded jerkin were thrown over one arm, and she saw that the shirt he wore had a spot of blood that had soaked through at his right shoulder. He was rubbing at it while he threw the heavy garments over Stranger's rump and wandered back over to her, his one eyebrow lifting as he looked her over. She turned her face away and wouldn't look at him until he dropped the old boots near her feet. "We're not staying," he grunted. While she tugged the stockings on and fought with the boots' fastenings, he rambled quietly down at her about the sun being too high in the sky and the farm being too close. Between sentences, he'd look at her with that same grim incredulity, and again, she glanced away.

Sansa got to her feet and was frowning at how her heels slipped around in the too-big boots when the Hound asked her abruptly, "Where's that cloak?"

"I…" She had forgotten it. It was Boros's, and she wanted it away from her. Her voice was hoarse. "I left it on the—"

"Where?" he said again. She started to go stumbling back for it, but then his big hand was on her shoulder. "I'll get it. Which way?"

She pointed, and he was gone. _Why would he want that filthy cloak? Does he miss his own?_ She felt a tinge of remorse then. She had left his white cloak in her trunk when she went to pray.

When the Hound returned, Sansa was looking solemnly at her naked wrist, trying to tie the ratty strip of cloth back on with one hand. Her fingers simply weren't working anymore. He muttered something at her and folded up the cloak, setting it in the saddle to ease the ride. Then he took the bandage from her as he passed and chucked it down the well. Her eyelids were only halfway open as she watched him picking at the cloth on her other wrist, pulling it free and tossing it too.

"Let it breathe so it'll heal," he said. He jerked a nod toward Stranger, but Sansa didn't move.

"I found this with the vest," she muttered, looking up at him as she brought out the comb. "I should thank you for thinking of…" The rest of it was lost when she saw him stiffen. At first, he only looked baffled, but then he grew irritated, even angry, and she knew immediately that he hadn't brought it for her at all. "Oh. I thought…" She fell silent.

"That bloody woman." He said it under his breath, talking more to himself than to Sansa. Resembling Stranger, he huffed a restless sigh out through his nose. "I'll tell you once we're going."

Her head swam when he lifted her into the saddle, but it wasn't dizzy and throbbing like it had been that morning. Looking down, she saw one of her new hunter's boots hanging against Stranger's side, and then the Hound's shoved into the stirrup below. As he mounted, she felt as if a stout wall had just been built behind her. The horse pulled at the limb, pawing and ready to go, so the Hound freed the rein and they went.

He told her of the goat farm, and she listened in quiet solitude, her fingers tracing along the teeth of the comb as monstrous old trees floated past. When he spoke of the audacious farmer's wife, it reminded Sansa of Old Nan, though surely this woman wasn't nearly as old. The scorn in his voice irked her, and she interrupted once to remind him, "Her son fell in battle, and these might have been all she had left to remember him by. It was kind of her to sell them to you."

"Fell in battle?" The Hound's chest rumbled like thunder when he chuckled at her. "He died in a bread riot, she said. He was fighting peasants and children wielding shovels and manure."

"I nearly died in a riot," she said quietly. "If you hadn't come…" She stopped there and padded her fingers against the cuts and bruises of her face, testing for pain. Nothing felt any worse, but it would be a long time healing, and she pressed away the dreaded thought that her face might be ruined. The Hound didn't acknowledge her comment, only leaning back some as they descended into a gully, so Sansa went back to fiddling with the comb and trying to keep her eyes open. "If you wanted boys' clothes, why did she put in the comb?"

She felt him shrug. "She knew it was for a girl. She was old." He turned his head, spat at the ground. "You live long enough, you catch things no one else does. She saw me sizing her, saw that her garb was too big. Caught me looking at those boots too, damn her. I know they're big on you, but you'll take them 'til you have better."

Sansa nodded gravely, and she wiggled her toes within the old leather. The ball of one foot was stinging from the bramble that bit her. "It was a gift, then. A woman's gift." She placed the comb back into her pocket, thinking of the vicious battle she would be having with her hair later, and felt him press against her as he leaned forward. His chin bumped against her head, and he reached around her to direct Stranger back up onto the high ground.

"Aye, bird," he said. "Suppose it was."

Long minutes crept by, and the Hound said nothing more. Sansa shifted every so often, her eyes drifting closed and then flying open again when Stranger would step too heavily into a ditch. She felt compelled to remain conscious and vigilant, but the sun was climbing above the forest, and the whispered creaking of the leather saddle was a traveler's lullaby in her ears.

**…**

The spot he picked was surprisingly lovely. Her eyes opened when he nudged her knee, and she was met with a mossy glade, green and dotted with ferns and lichen. The ground here was level, but it was at the foundation of a woodsy incline that had a collection of boulders and rock faces holding the soil together. Roots and vines were growing right out of cracks in the stone, and young trees leaned out from the hillside, reaching for the sunlight that spilled in to illuminate the clearing. Two colossal boulders stood at the base of the slope, glimmering in the sun as they seemed to hold the mountain at bay. The orange glow of the light told Sansa that it was much later than she thought. They must have ridden for hours and hours, as was proven by the soreness along her inner thighs. She wanted off.

"No, come here." The Hound helped her down without asking, his hands pulling around her waist and making her lose her grip on the saddle horn.

"I can—"

"You almost leaned right off the bloody saddle, four times."

She didn't remember that at all, and swayed when her feet found the ground. When he steadied her, she looked up, woozy. "Are we staying here?"

He nodded at her and turned her shoulders so she faced the two boulders standing like sentries upon a large pad of moss. "Go sit down."

Leaning against the cool rock with her rump nestled in moss was a far more luxurious feeling than she would have expected. While she vaguely watched him unloading bags and carving out a spot for a fire, she took out her comb and worked away at the knots in her hair. He cut his eyes at her from time to time, frowning at her use of the gift, and then he went back to his rummaging. She didn't mind his grimaces; she had hair, after all, and hair required combing. The repetitive motion made her think of her lady mother, who had always loved her fine auburn hair, and then her throat tightened. Again, she looked down at the scabbing marks on her wrists, and her chest shuddered, but she ground her teeth and stilled herself before the sob could come. She combed meditatively, and had just restored her tresses back to their soft waves when a wind blew them across her face, cool and nipping at her cheeks. Autumn was singing in the murmuring leaves.

As the sun began to set for true, the Hound had relieved Stranger of his saddle and was brushing the courser down, patting at his sides and rubbing a hand down his forelegs. Sansa was almost ashamed to find herself amazed, watching the Hound care for an animal like anyone else would. After he'd watered the horse and given him a handful of bagged oats, he let him wander a bit so he could nibble at the vegetation huddled between the roots of trees.

The crackling of the fire was doing the same as the creaking leather had, and her brain felt slow and tired as she ventured a question. "Why are horses brushed so often? Is it just to be nice?"

The Hound stowed the brush and came to crouch across from her, on the other side of the small flames. "No, you have to do it, else he'll get sores. Dirt gets trapped under the saddle, and salt builds from sweat."

"Oh." It was all very practical, she could see now.

"Might be you'll do it next time, when you're stronger." He smirked some when she ogled at him, the scarred side of his mouth parting to reveal a few teeth, but then it faded just as quick. "You going to eat something?"

She wanted to cry and scream and sleep like the dead, _not_ eat, but his question sounded closer to a relatively forceful suggestion, so she only nodded at him. He stood and picked up the little pot on his way, and was gone for a while. When he came back, he had the kettle and the stoppered bottle he'd brought from the farm. She leaned her head back against the rock while he sat down next to her, filling his clay cup with the contents of the bottle.

She had almost started drifting away again when he laid his hand on the crown of her head and turned her to look at him. The cup was offered, and then she knew just what it was. Her nose wrinkled at the sharp, dirty smell of it and she stated, "I don't like goats' milk."

The cup stopping halfway between them, a gentle ghost of a smile played around the corner of his lopsided mouth, but it never made it there as he replied gruffly, "I don't care."

He waited until she took the cup, and the goats' milk went down, sip by sip. She was surprised to find that it settled pleasantly in her stomach, filling some of the shuddering emptiness she'd had there a moment before. When he opened up the kettle, the smell that reached her was mind-numbing and, at once, her stomach riled and she was starving. He had to have seen her staring as he poured the pot full of a chunky stew, setting it in the fire. She watched it the entire time it heated there, until it steamed and bubbled and simmered.

The Hound gave her all of the soup, and he gnawed on strips of dried meat with bread and oily cheese while she dove into her bowl. She didn't know what the chunks of meat and vegetable were, but she didn't care. It was hot and tender and life-giving, and when it was all but gone, she scraped the wooden spoon against the bottom of the pot in search of any remaining broth.

It was only when she put the pot down near the fire that she saw him watching her. Gathering her knees up to her chest, she avoided his steely gray eyes and sat her chin on her knees, hugging her legs close. She thought she was comfortable, but then her ribs flared and she put her legs back down quick. She could still feel the toe of the boot kicking, knocking her windless and driving waves of pain into her head. Wrapping her arm around the spot, she shuddered and looked off into the darkening trees.

"Still hurting," he observed.

His voice was quieter than she'd ever heard it, and she clasped her fingers together in her lap. "I'm alright," she promised. It was bothering her, but the pain only seemed attributed to specific movements, so she hadn't spoken of it.

"Where?"

She lifted her arm and indicated her side with the brush of a finger. "Here. It's a bit sore." Dropping the arm, she said again, "But I'm alright."

He was in his wineskin again as he stared into the fire, and the silence between them grew thick until he mumbled, "That shouldn't have happened." When he finally met her gaze, there was a desolation in his eyes with a depth that was at once both pitiable and frightening.

Feeling naked in the shadow of his bleak stare, she studied the hem of her vest and mentioned softly, "In the dungeon, you called me by my name. You've never done that before."

He looked back at the flames then, suddenly impassive. "Haven't I?"

She yawned long and shook her head. "Only on Joff's Name Day. When you had to."

"Did I?" he rasped. Another drink of wine went down, sloshing in the skin.

"You did, you called me Lady Sansa." Groggy, she watched his scars glisten eerily in the firelight. "I didn't notice then, but you've never said it since."

There was an empty space there in her statement, room for a rebuttal, room for a _reason_, but he left it there. Wiping the dust from his knees, he got to his feet and went to tie Stranger. He returned with her bedroll and dropped it on the moss some distance from the campfire, kicking it open and spreading it out. He wandered back to her, and his voice seemed a hundred miles above as he said, "Go to sleep." And she obeyed.

Giving up on walking, she got on her hands and knees and crawled, rolling onto the bedding and not bothering to slide under the fur. As she sighed onto to her uninjured side, she heard him wander off somewhere. The chorus of crickets came humming out of the wood, and Stranger nibbled and blew. As she closed her eyes, a whisper found itself in her throat, and she took a heavy breath before letting it slide out through her lips, so quiet, she could barely hear herself. "You told me knights were for killing, and they are. I didn't listen."


	10. Chapter 10

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Thank you for all your lovely comments and support. Your reviews make me keep going. I've outlined the majority of the plot now, and I'm looking forward to some scenes coming up!_  
_-I am preparing for final exams next week, and have been turning in big projects and assignments the past two weeks. Also, a dear friend of mine passed away last week, so things have been stressful. Sorry for the slow updates._  
_-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 10**

The wineskin was empty and the girl was sleeping. The glow of dying embers played against the uneven contours of the Hound's face as he watched her, his temples stirring with the idle grinding of his jaw. He sat on large stone by the coals, his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his palms together, trying to decide. The moon was whole in the sky this night, and it bathed the rocks and trees in ghostly gray light. He saw her move, murmuring with discomfort and turning onto her back, and then she was still. Her breath was light and regular, her chest swelling and falling with a rhythm that calmed his tensions, and he went to her.

When he was close, he saw that she had an arm stretched out across the moss by her bedding, fingers curled into it for security, but her head had rolled to one side, lips parted. She was far, far away just now, in the deep of a sleep long awaited, the kind of rest one can only have after enduring horror. He walked around to her left side and wasn't careful, testing to find whether she reacted to the sound. She didn't move when he bent and crouched on the ground, one knee pressed into the cool dampness of the earth. Her other arm was pulled across her belly, the hand cupped against her ribs, and he slid a thumb beneath her palm, dragging the arm away.

He stopped then, watching her eyes swimming beneath her lids, but she didn't shift. Tactful, he loosed two of the buttons at the seam of her vest, paused, glanced at her face, and then released the last. With painstaking care, he parted the wool panels and peeled them away. _If she starts, what will you tell her?_ It didn't matter, he knew. She'd not let him this close when she was awake, not yet, and she had to be looked at. If there was a break, she couldn't ride anymore, and he didn't know what he'd do then. Testing her responsiveness again, he mumbled, "Don't wake," aloud. Then he reached.

He only raised the shirt a little, baring her hip and a bit of stomach, and then he kicked at a limb sitting halfway out of the ashes nearby. It was enough to stir the embers and spark a flame, and he leaned to move the sooty sticks back to the top of the coals. After a moment, a waning little fire was crackling once more, and, coupled with moon glow, the light was better. The girl remained fixed in her slumber, her hand limp in the moss. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of the shirt, he squinted at the paths of discoloration that ran along her hip bone and up her side, pooling into darker marks here and there beneath the skin. He dragged the fabric up gradually as he followed the trail of bruises, and then the knobby outline of her ribs shone in the flickering light, awash with wide fingers of dark plum and brown and black.

It was a torment to look at, but he kept careful when he set his hand delicately upon her midsection, watching her. Her stomach moved against his palm as she breathed, the skin soft and tepid from the heat of the fire. When his fingertips traced along her ribs, he stayed his breath, barely touching her while he looked for swelling or knots in the bone. Finding nothing significant, he went to pad his thumb at the heart of the bruise, when he pressed too firmly. The girl made a sound, her brows gathering at the sting, and the Hound's hand recoiled. As he stared at her, a moment passed, and then she settled, breathing out long and calm.

It took him an absurd number of seconds to let himself move again, and he slid the fabric back over her stomach, only bothering to secure one of the vest buttons. Then he was slinking away from her, planting himself on a ratty blanket he'd thrown over the mossy earth. He settled on his back, his scar leaning against his arm, and felt himself relax. _At worst, they're cracked, maybe not even that_, he decided. _She'll heal_. He shut his eyes and gave himself to the dark, descending gradually into the murky pit of his mind while the fire sputtered out again. Before the cruelty of dreams took him, the last thing he thought of was the savored closeness of her skin, a moment in time hiding in some corner of his subconscious where he kept all fragile things; things that were only allowed to drift into focus when he was just on the edge of sleep.

**…**

He'd been up for at least an hour before the girl began to stir on her bedding. She made a noise, turned, and settled on her side, her cheek propped up on a pale arm extended across the earth. All but her lips were shrouded by the curtain of hair that had slid over her face, and she'd curled herself up like a cat. The Hound watched her squirm on the fur and then went back to his work, dragging an oiled cloth over the mail shirt draped over his knee. His plate armor sat in pieces by his boot, dented, but clean.

On the occasion that he wasn't wine-sick, he was at his calmest in the early mornings, when the light was pale and clean, and the mist still clung to the trees. It was then that he went about his lonely routines, seeing to Stranger and eating a little and tending his gear in the murky quiet. Sleep had a tendency to dull the ire at his core, and the few hours after dawn let him be the simplest part of himself, yawning and carrying out his habits before the demons caught up with him.

Now, the quiet was receding and the world was waking up, the little pile of girl rousing along with it. She sat up without a sound, her legs curled beneath her and her eyes gazing about, unfocused and blinking. Her long hair was riled up in copper wisps around her cheeks, mussed by slumber, and her brow furrowed as she rubbed her palm against an eye. Then her body seemed to remember its pain, and she grimaced at it while she crawled to her feet. She was hugging herself against the chill of dawn and dew, looking at him.

He looked back. Wordless, she shuffled through the ferns to retrieve the waterskin that sat on the ground near his armor. She pulled the stopper and sniffed at it to be sure it wasn't wine, and then took a sip, swished it through her mouth, swallowed it. Turning, she let the skin slip from her fingers and wandered off, disappearing behind the two hulking boulders at the foot of the forest hill. He could hear her scuffling up the slope as he finished his polishing, and he lifted the mail to look at it, shaking it out. Good enough. He knew he ought to put it back on once they were moving again, but it was nice to have the weight off.

Though the Lannisters cared little for the bird, they would likely be in pursuit for a while, at least until Joffrey grew lazy and distracted and dismissed her as dead. Surely, they'd found her dress in the dungeons by now, and even with a slayed brother of the Kingsguard on the stairs, the possibility that she'd gotten away wouldn't seem likely. No, Joffrey would assume that Boros struck down the marauder whose neck the Hound had snapped, and that whoever killed Boros would have killed the Stark girl too, once he had dragged her off and had his way. That was the nature of a siege. Cersei, though, she was the stubborn one. Whether she would insist on a thorough search of the surrounding lands, the Hound wasn't certain. He'd covered their first fire and picked up the slipper the bird had left by the well, but Cersei didn't always act on evidence. She had a madness to her.

When the girl came back to the glade, she was tucking her shirt back into the hunter's trousers and adjusting the vest. Her hands still had traces of the cell smudged across her fingers and beneath her nails, her face was dirty, and her feet were brown and gray with mud and ash. She noticed, and looked repulsed as she stretched her slender digits out before her.

"There's a spring," the Hound told her, gazing up at her through the dark section of hair hanging over the wreckage of his left eye. "Up where you were. It feeds out of a rock face, up the hill."

Her eyes got a little bigger at that, and she turned her head to gaze up the incline. "I didn't hear any water, but then I wasn't looking."

When she looked back at him, he was already up and striding past her. "I'll show you. I've been here before, I remember it."

It had been years, though, since he'd accompanied Joffrey on the only hunt Robert had bothered to include the young prince in. This was the farthest they had gone then, and with thirsty dogs and tired men, the spring had been a welcome sight. Now, he was only half-certain he knew which side of the hill it was on. The girl kept up with him, though. She stumbled some, and huffed at the branches that tickled her face, but she stayed right on his heels as he climbed the slope. The stone outcrop wasn't far up at all. Looking back, he could still see the two huge rocks that marked their camp below.

"Don't break your neck." He went first, keeping close to the rock face as he moved along the ledge. It was wide enough to accommodate two horses abreast, but he warned her all the same.

The spring was still there, a clear stream soaking a long dark tear down the face of the rock, and it slipped off to become a tiny waterfall beneath the lip of the outcrop. Well, it was more of a dribble, really, spattering into a bucket-sized hollow at their feet before streaming off down the cliff.

He cupped his hand beneath the trickle and leaned down to drink it from his palm. Never in King's Landing had he tasted water so sweet. Mountain water. He splashed another palm-full against his face and straightened to regard the little bird as he wiped the droplets away with his sleeve. She wasn't chirping at him, as she once had, but was observing closely, looking at the clean water with hunger. "Don't be too long," he stated roughly. Then he was rounding the corner of the cliff and heading back down the hill so she could scrub the dungeons off of her.

_And the men. _The thought unhinged him momentarily, a flood of anguish that swept his resolve away in its wake.

By the time he'd gotten back to the fire, his stomach was ice, and he had to guzzle a few heavy sips from his second skin of wine to quell the loathing that had rekindled at his center. Like a biting animal, it riled and then recoiled, shrinking away into a quiet, gnawing sort of disgust that he could control. To busy himself, he set about packing up the girl's bedding and covering their ashes, and he did this with alarming speed.

When she came back, Stranger was packed and the Hound was sitting on the ground against one of the boulders, His chin was on his chest with his eyes half closed and his long legs stretched out on the ground. The bird looked almost herself as she shuffled near him. Despite the purpling bruises at her nose and brow bone, her face was clean, and her hands too, and she'd plaited her damp hair into a long braid at her back, tied into a knot at the bottom. She had redressed when she wasn't completely dry; moisture had soaked through her sleeves and pant legs in places, but her boots were on and she was ready to go.

Pulling himself to his feet, the Hound went up the hill again, taking his turn at the spring. It was agonizingly cold; he was shivering by the time he'd gotten most of the sweat and blood off. He refilled their waterskins, washed out his cast iron pot and clay cup, and then returned to the camp to find the girl crouching over the soil, poking at mushrooms with a stick. The skin of her throat was still goose-pimpled from the icy water, and she looked brisk and alert for the first time since he'd taken her from the castle. When she saw him, she went obediently to the horse so he could help her saddle.

They were riding well away from the glade when he asked her, off-handed and brief, "Feel better?"

She only nodded beneath his chin, clean and rested and healthier for it. She was not alright, she was not at ease, but he would carry her across the world and she would keep living.

**…**

They rode away the day. Every so often, she would say some small, nervous thing, a comment on the loveliness of the old trees, how they reminded her of her home. Sometimes she would ask for a bit of food or water, or to be let down from the horse so she could relieve herself or stretch her legs. He granted her needs with minimal civility and spoke sparingly, his mind on where they were going. If the bird had been willing when he came to her room at the Keep, he would have gone through her things and packed better for her.

_If she had been senseless, maybe. If she had been mad._

It hadn't gone as he'd wanted, though. Thus, a mount and clothes and personal effects were all things she lacked, and if he meant to get her North, he'd have to remedy that. He also wasn't keen on riding hard for Winterfell yet, not just days after the both of them disappeared from King's Landing. A mad dash north smelled like folly, so he had decided to stay south of Blackwater Rush for a time, and to ride southwest to the tiny trading town of Tumbleton, nestled by the north-most tip of the Mander river. He could find a horse there, maybe hear some talk, find out if some reward had been offered for a highborn girl.

_You'll have to cover up that fucking hair._

It was beautiful against the dull gray of her vest, braided and clean and shining like copper coins when they passed beneath a patch of sunlight peeking through the canopy.

The sky grew golden, then blush, then a deepening blue, and again, they made camp for the night. Dusk was on them, and the Hound left her with a crackling fire while he went to forage and hunt in the waning light. He was a better trapper than a bowman, but he did well enough to bring down a pheasant when it startled from its sleep and tried to take flight.

The girl looked forlorn when he was gutting it with his dagger, cutting out the best of the meat and not bothering to pluck. His bad side facing her, he met her pity with insolence as he pulled out one of its beautiful tail feathers and handed it to her, fingers covered in gore. He saw her nose twitch at the macabre offering, but she took it and looked away. In his bloodied grip, the feather had been a gruesome thing, a symbol of slain innocence, predator and prey; but in her hands, it was something very different, something pretty and unspoiled. She ran it between her fingers and twirled it in her lap as she stared into the fire.

When night fell onto the wood in earnest, their fire had died to cinders and the bones of their dinner baked in the powdery coals. Stars blanketed the black sky in the millions, fighting to share the heavens with the glow of the moon. There was no wind, and even the crickets only chirped every now and again. The forest was gripped in some strange, dense quiet that seemed unsettled whenever some creature could be heard disturbing a leaf or a branch.

Yet the girl didn't sleep. She was on her bed roll with her back to him, on the other side of the fire, but the way she breathed and moved her head at every infrequent little noise told him she was awake. She was listening to the night, her shoulders hunched and frozen. She almost looked like a child laying there, waiting for some beast to leap from the shadows.

"Still awake." He was tired, and his voice was gravelly as it carried across the dark.

She scuffled beneath her blanket and turned her shoulders, rolling her head over and just looking at him.

"What is it?" he asked her flatly. He reached up to wipe the back of his hand across his eyes.

When he looked at her next, she was peering across the space with her nose buried in the fur. "It's nothing. I'm sorry." She glanced away, her eyes on the trees, and then started to turn over again.

Rasping a sigh, he sat up and scratched at his ribs before standing and taking his blanket with him. He caught her staring straight up at him as he spread it out on the soil a few feet away from her. "I only sleep hard when I'm drunk, bird," he grunted, smirking in the gloom, lowering himself back to the ground. "If someone comes, I'll be up well before you. You can shut your eyes."

"I'm not afraid," she lied. "I didn't mean to keep you awake."

"Then sleep," he rumbled at her, impatient. The ground wasn't as soft here, and he shifted irritably on his back until he gave up and closed his eyes.

His arm was draped over his eyelids and his muscles were beginning to loosen when he heard her exhale. Then she moved, and he picked his arm up to find her sitting upright. For a long moment, he watched her in the moonlight. Her loose hair spilled down in waves, and her hands grasped her elbows. She was thinking, gazing off at nothing at all. Now, he could see it. She was remembering, and that was a mistake.

"Stop."

Startled, she turned her head, and he assumed she was looking at him, though it was too dark to tell. "Stop what?" She sounded so meek, frightfully small. For whatever reason, she added, "I'm sorry."

"Stop your sorrys," he rasped. "And stop thinking of the dungeons." Oddly, he was glad of the night just now, glad she couldn't see his burns clearly. "You'll only dream of it if you do."

"I have." She reached up, pulled her hair around one shoulder, and shivered. Then he saw the outline of her cheekbone as she angled her face down at him, and the despair in her voice sent a chill along his arms, making the hair bristle. "I don't want to sleep again."

He couldn't bear it suddenly, the weight in his chest. Something came tumbling down there, and he felt the ice in his stomach again as he stared upward. There was a rawness to his voice when he asked it of her, something he shouldn't have, didn't have the right to, but he asked her anyway. "I know it's your hole to mend. I know I shouldn't ask, but I am. In the cell, your dress was gone." The chill of night made her breath mist in the air, and he could _see_ her exhale as she began to cave, her face falling to stare at the dead campfire. He sat up. "Look at me." She did, and he thought she might start crying again but when she didn't, he asked it. "Did they?"

_Why ask her this? Done is done. You can't help her._

For a while, she said nothing, just gazing up at him for moments long and uneasy.

_She doesn't understand._

Then, "Oh." She looked away, and for an instant, he wanted to grab her, make her answer him, but he remained still, his eyes burning holes in the dark. He saw her shake her head, and his shoulders let go. The weight fled, and he felt like he was falling into the very earth at the relief of it. "No," she said. "They beat me, but not that. I felt certain it was going to happen." She plummeted into the memory, her words hurried. "Ser Meryn was right over me, but he didn't. He _couldn't_. He said so himself. Then he just—"

The Hound flared, and she saw it. His eyes must have been wild. "Meryn?" He was flummoxed, and the poison was burrowing its way back into his gut as she stared at him. "You said nothing of Meryn."

"What?"

"That cunt was there?"

She was gaping, stumbling over her words. "I…yes. But I didn't… I thought you killed him."

"I killed _two_."

"Oh. I didn't know the third man, I…"

The Hound spat a curse, and then he was looking away from her, his molars gnawing. Nothing was said for what must have been several minutes. He was seething in it, boiling in the vast depth of his ire. By the time he fell back out of it, he saw her in a different way, and she was crying.

He reached. "No," he grunted. His hand heavy on her shoulder, he pressed her, making her lie back down. "Don't cry." The words were quiet and steady, and she did as she was bid. "Close your eyes, go on."

Wiping her nose on her arm, she whispered. "I'm sorry. I should have said—"

"It's not to do with you. Go to sleep."

She pulled the fur up to her chin. "But you're so cross. I don't understand. Meryn fled before you came. You didn't know about him."

"Aye." He watched her and saw her shrinking under his look. "He did. And he lived. Go to sleep, I said." He spat in the dirt and got to his feet, stooping to get his wineskin from a saddlebag on the ground.

Then she seemed to understand. "Why does that make you so angry? If he hadn't left, I might not have been spared the…the..."

"He should have _been _there." the Hound hissed, riling. "Waiting for my steel. Waiting to piss himself while I gutted him against the wall."

When her voice finally emerged again, it was a whisper. "I heard you kill the other two. I heard it," she said, at once both frightened and demanding. "You loved it. You loved making them die."

"Oh yes, bird. I loved making those shits die." He stepped closer to her, and he could feel her watching him from her bed. "I love making them all die. Again and again."


	11. Chapter 11

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

___-Wow. I'm so sorry for the wait. I was going to wait and finish another long chapter before uploading, but I've decided to put this little one up on its own, to at least convince you that I'm still working on this. I have tried so many times to sit down and write the past several weeks, and it's just been impossible to do so without interruption until this afternoon._

___-If you happen to still be out there reading this, do pop in and say hello! Feel free to PM me any time, or drop me a quick little review, even if it's just "man, this chapter didn't do it for me", hahahaha. I love to hear from you all._

___-WARNING: There is a bit of gore in this chapter, for those bothered by that sort of thing._

___-A visual representation of _Kindred___ can now be found on my tumblr (my tumblr username is the same as my username here). On the right-hand side, there is a link titled "Kindred-related posts". All images have been credited to their creators. It's nothing elaborate, just some stuff I've found to supplement the story a bit. ______This is also where I post some extra author's notes that I do not put here, like my thoughts on plot development, reviews, etc._

___-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 11**

The brush here was so thick, Sansa felt like the forest was consuming her whole, pulling her deep into its viney gullet. Brambles threatened to catch her arms and cheeks at every turn, but the boots helped. Her legs and feet felt not a thing as she trampled through, picking her way gingerly back to the horse. Though she had hurried, she still thought she must have taken too long, that the Hound's patience must be dissolving more with every second used up. She had slept late that morning too, she could tell by the way he'd set his jaw as he watched her rolling up her bed. Suddenly exasperated with the constant assault of saplings and tangled greenery, she huffed and pressed her lips together, fighting against the woods with hot cheeks.

He had been so incensed the previous night, she'd gone to sleep in a pool of worry. Would he think to dump her off near some lord's castle along the way, to leave her with an ally of the King and be rid of her? At times, he looked over her and something like sympathy came through, bare and bleak and excruciatingly genuine. She had seen it, and it gripped her hard, making her shiver in its depth. But when he had questioned her in the night, his response was something else entirely, something dark and horrible. Whether it had been aimed at her made no difference. It had filled her with shame at her weakness, her inability to defend herself, to become something other than someone's burden. The Hound hated weakness. She had learned that in King's Landing.

He hadn't spoken to her much since then, and when he did, it was flat and far away. It was like walking over egg shells when she had asked for bread, asked for help with her boots, asked to stop so she could trek into the wood and make her water. She wondered how she had been able to stand all of her childhood pampering. Now, her every small need seemed to add to some list of things that had to be repaid.

She stopped suddenly, and the crackling and snapping stopped with her. This was taking too long. The walk away from Stranger had been shorter. As she glanced about in the quiet, the lovely twill of some bird reached her ears, but it was no comfort. There was a stone there near her feet, covered in moss, and a massive old tree with something's home carved into the dirt at its base, and a cluster of little flowering bushes, the blooms a happy red against all the green, and she remembered none of it. This was new, all of it. Looking behind her, she saw only the tangle of foliage and felt suffocated by it. Back that way, it all looked the same. Could she have angled herself in the wrong direction and not noticed?

_Oh no._

The sun would be setting soon. Her eyes darted, looking for the big shadow of a horse, but she saw nothing but gray and green, and more of it beyond. She almost called out, but then her face burned redder. She had only traveled a small ways into the trees, going just far enough to feel safe from his eyes, and yet had gotten herself lost. How he would laugh at her stupidity for this, or worse, meet her with that hard, one-sided scowl that made her chest seize up until he looked away from her. He had looked at her that way in her chambers at the Keep, when she had shut her eyes against him. She had felt his hands on her then, heard the fury in his words, and had opened her eyes again to see that hard, glowering scowl before he forced her down to the bed.

_Stop it. That was before. That was something else._

She couldn't fret over that now, standing frozen in the wood like this, waiting for the right direction to dawn on her. The great tree before her was almost as wide as she was tall, and its canopy held most other trees at bay, creating something of a small clearing where ferns and mushrooms grew low to the earth, bowing to the elder tree's magnificence. Stepping over roots, she went around its broad trunk to get a look at the wall of forest on the other side, and then resigned herself to defeat. She would have to go back the way she came.

It was then, when Sansa turned, that she saw it. It was floating in the air, it had been right at the back of her head, following her, hovering – no. No, _hanging_. It was hanging, suspended from some huge limb. A cry started in her throat, but it was choked down along with her breath as she stepped back, stumbled, stepped again, but then the terror had her and she was held there, helpless and unable to run. Recognition fell over her in a wave and it made her insides pull tight, and her stomach twisted.

Two legs, white and stiff, dangled still in the air. There were no feet. Sansa's ears rang like they were full of water, deaf to the sounds of the wood as she realized the feet had been _gnawed off_. The rest of the body was too high to be reached by whatever thing had been so ravenous. Unable to think, her gaze moved up on its own, to the skirt of a dress, tavern garb, tattered and smeared. Then the head, its chin limp over the rope, colorless cheeks framed with waves of hair, blonde as the sun. But the _eyes_. Dead, cloudy eyes, human eyes, staring, accusing. She felt herself stop breathing, and her heart seemed to the point of bursting where she stood, when the hand closed over her forearm, pulling her back.

She nearly swallowed her tongue. Spinning, she struggled against the hand and, for half a moment, her feet made her want to run, fly through the trees like prey. But then she was breathing, seeing. It was him. His eyes were steel, and they were all she saw; no scar, no scowl, no sea of green beyond. Just steady pools of gray above her, holding her there, stilling her. Panting, she broke the look and started to turn her head back to the corpse, but he tightened his grip on her.

"No," he muttered. His voice was all stone. "Come on, we're going."

Then he had her hand and was pulling her away, and her feet obeyed, but they hadn't gone far before she was looking back. Nearly tripping, she saw the dead girl floating further and further away, until the forest crept in and obscured her entirely, entombing her.

**…**

Sansa could barely hear herself talking. "I went the wrong way. I don't know how." She was staring at the undergrowth, slouching in the saddle. "I don't know."

The Hound pulled at something, adjusting, and she felt the leather moving beneath her. "Doesn't matter," he said. He must have seen her trembling, for he wrapped a hand around the ankle of her boot and shook. "Oy. Listen to me."

Despondent, she looked down and saw all of it again; the hard-set mouth, the ratty stitches at shoulders of his tunic, the ugliness of his scar in the daylight.

"That won't happen to you," he told her, and the promise was there in his face. Then there was something else, strange and close, something that made them the same. Her brow pulled together, but she felt him nudge her boot once more before he let her go, and the thought was gone. "Death is death." He looked her straight in the eyes. "But you're well alive, and fear can keep you that way, but the fear goes both ways. Don't let it swallow you."


	12. Chapter 12

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Teehee, poor Sansa. I would have smacked him. Sorry, don't mean to spoil it. I hope you enjoy this one. It's a bit more casual. Our girl needs a break before the world becomes cruel again, as it always does.__  
_

_-For the record, snaggle tooth is totally hot and no one can convince me otherwise._

_-I love the reviews, everyone. Thank you for keeping me informed. Every word helps._

_-A visual representation of _Kindred___ can now be found on my tumblr (my tumblr username is the same as my username here). On the right-hand side, there is a link titled "Kindred-related posts". All images have been credited to their creators. It's nothing elaborate, just some stuff I've found to supplement the story a bit. ______This is also where I post some extra author's notes that I do not put here, like my thoughts on plot development, reviews, etc._

_-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 12**

She awoke to a slow, infrequent thunking. Her head heavy, she rubbed her eyes and stretched her legs out until her toes pointed beneath the fur, but it didn't help. Her body wouldn't be roused from its torpor just now, and she let her eyes drift closed again while she listened to the Hound's boots scuffling in the dirt. They had ridden late into the previous night. He had said things about risk and the hanged girl and too close to the road, and she had just listened in stony silence, watching the horse's breath mist in the dusk.

**…**

_When they finally stopped, the sky had been black for many hours, and the Hound made no fire. They ate little, supping on chunks of strong cheese and enough bread to still their stomachs, and Sansa was still hungry when she crawled into her bed roll, though she said not a word. He stood like a sentry by the horse, his arms folded across his chest and his back against a tree, and he was peering off into the black when she asked him about the girl._

_"Why was she out here in the forest like that?" She took great care not to let her voice flutter._

_The Hound only looked at her, and Stranger blew, so he looked at Stranger. _

_Insistent, she squirmed within the fur and pressed him. "People are hanged in squares for crimes." Her tone was straining some, she could hear it. "She shouldn't have been…what did it mean?"_

_"Nothing," he grunted at her. "It meant nothing. There are dead things in all forests. Things dying and things fighting to live. No one writes songs about that." It wasn't angry or mocking, only tired. "And you're right, little bird, crimes are punished where others will see. This was no punishment."_

_"If they only wanted her, to kill her or…" She didn't finish the thought and pulled the fur closer to her chin. "Why hang her up like that? She's only a girl. Like me."_

_"Not like you." He scuffed his heel into the dirt then, stirring up a rock and kicking it aside. "Yellow of hair and pouring wine for the wrong bannermen, most like." When Sansa only stared at him, he asked her, "How long did you look?"_

_"I don't know, not long. I was afraid."_

_"Then you didn't see. There was an L, marked on her face. This is a war we're in. Best you remember."_

_Stiffly, she sat up, and her eyes wandered while she thought. _Yellow of hair._ "She _couldn't_ have been a Lannister. She was common. Her clothes."_

_"No, she wasn't a Lannister, bird. But that didn't matter for her. Men will see their enemy in anyone they choose." He bent to collect the longsword he'd set beside him against the tree and lowered himself to the ground with the scabbard across his lap. "Sleep now. I need to think."_

_She didn't, not immediately, but watched him a moment longer, just making out the tops of his shoulders and the outline of his head in the dark. Then she felt a profound sadness and turned over, settling on her better side and running her hand along her ribs. They were on the mend and feeling a little better, but she didn't care. She could only think of the girl's empty eyes as she began to drift. "Seven save her." The whisper found its way out through the dark, though she didn't know whether she had said it or only dreamt it. It didn't matter. Here in the wood, in the quiet dead of a night that would leave her forever changed, surely the gods would hear._

**…**

_THUNK._

Sansa stirred. She rolled over.

_THUNK._

Sighing through her nose, she pulled herself up and squinted. Then something flew by, so quick, like an arrow, and she went stiff. Her skin prickled with alarm, but then she heard the sound and calmed. It was a knife. Its grip and most of its blade was jutting out from a tree. The trunk was riddled with little lines where the steel had struck, and the bark there had been all but knocked away. The Hound went to fetch it, and she watched him as he yanked it from the wood, wiped it off on his britches. He was returning to his throwing spot when he saw her.

"Thought you were dead."

She looked at him, saw the beginnings of an acerbic grin, and he threw again. The noise made her blink by reflex, and his deadly accuracy had her staring. "Thank you for letting me sleep."

He didn't say a thing, but left the knife and put a few more limbs on the small fire he'd made. She hadn't noticed immediately, but he'd taken most of their things out, and had been hunting too. Something was baking in a tent of flat stones atop the embers, and the smell was what pulled her from the blankets. Padding barefoot across the earth, she sat cross-legged near the fire and set her elbows on her knees, feeling like a little boy in her trousers.

"We're not riding today?" The sun was high now; she'd missed the morning entirely.

"Later." He stood over her, gave her the water. "I've had enough."

She was relieved at that, and swished the water around in her mouth before swallowing. Her teeth were beginning to feel grimy, and she hated that. "Is there anywhere to wash?"

"You'll wash tomorrow." He crouched and leaned forward to prod at the meat, first with a stick, then a finger, and settled back on the ground, letting her frown at him. He had changed his clothes, it looked like, but she still could see the dirt on him. Keeping his distance, he looked at her sideways. "How are your ribs?"

"Better."

"And your wrists, let me see." When she offered them, he took her arms gently and turned them over, pressing lightly at the scabs. Looking at his huge hands made her feel terribly fragile, and he mistook her frown for impatience and let her go.

Their meal turned out to be rabbit, and when he pulled it from the coals, they ate like wildlings, silent and greedy. Careless in her hunger, she sucked the grease from her fingers when she was finished and settled quietly into her thoughts, listening to the breathing forest and the birds tussling about in its leafy crown. First, her mind tried to pull up the awful image of that girl, but Sansa tore away from it and thought instead of home. Then it came to her, something she'd noticed on yesterday's ride, but hadn't the gall to ask him. It was disconcerting, though, and it needed knowing.

"Why aren't we going north?"

The Hound was still eating, and he wiped the rough side of his mouth on his forearm, looking at his food and ignoring the blue of her stare. "Then the bird does have eyes."

She almost thought to glare but caught herself and averted her eyes, waiting with a patience she'd honed all her life. He had a way about him, and learning it was becoming easier. She knew better than to meet his scorn with vexation. It was her peace that beat him, and only that.

It didn't take long. "I was biding time," he stated. "To go north, we need things and that means buying. Couldn't do that with Gold Cloaks searching the inns, so we gave Cersei and her whelp the time to look. They won't look long, not after seeing the dungeons. Tomorrow, we go to Tumbleton." He was regarding her with a sidelong glance, studying her. "You're in need of an inn."

"Do you think they believe me dead, truly?" The notion was strange to her, being alive and dead at the same time. She felt so different here in the trees, with her men's clothes and her hair unwashed. The self that she knew might as well have died. Grimacing, she chided herself.

_You're becoming cynical_.

"I would," he admitted, "the way it looked, but they'll hunt a while all the same."

She bit at her lower lip, feeling the way the skin had grown taught and tender around the healing cut. "What if the townspeople know? There could be a reward or—"

"Cersei won't risk her brother, girl," he reminded her. "You're her leverage, don't you know? If word that you've been swept off or killed finds its way to _your_ brother, the stalemate's done." He shook his head at the ground. "No, she'll keep it quiet, send out hosts of her own. It's the smallfolk we'll be careful of. You might have breeches and boots, but you're not like them. They'll see it. Then it's the questions next, and the rumors. They don't have to be told what they can see right in front of them."

Sansa nodded solemnly, and he met her eyes with his sturdy calm when she asked, "What can we do?"

He turned the rabbit leg over in his fingers, pulled at some gristle and tossed it away. "We go, and we get what's needed, and we sleep a night and leave before they've time to start their chatter. Elsewise, we try to get North with nothing but streams and squirrels and one horse, and I'll tell you now that won't go easy." When the Hound glanced up at Stranger, she saw only his ruined side, his smirk peeling back and rippling the skin dreadfully. "He'll not put up with the both of us much longer."

…

Stranger was watching her, and she him. She had thought to take a walk, and she knew the Hound wouldn't disallow her, but the memory of the girl in the tree had rattled the idea right out of her head and almost brought up her breakfast. So instead, she had knocked the mud off her boots and listened to the Hound tell her about Tumbleton by the tip of the Mander. There would be a market, he said, and hot food. After a while, though, he'd gone quiet, and it was her want for the hair comb that brought her into a standoff with Stranger.

The courser had moved, wandering as far from his limb as the rope allowed, and he was standing directly over one of the saddle bags. She knew her comb was in it, she'd checked the others, and now she leaned against a young tree, pulling at the hem of her vest and fretting. She had ridden him, hadn't she? For days, she'd touched him and he hadn't cared. Arcing her way around his head, she took a few steps toward the horse's side, but stopped short when he snorted and blew and turned to acknowledge her with a swatting tail. For fear of being kicked, she stumbled backward and earned the Hound's fascinated stare.

"What do you want with him?" He was scrutinizing her, sitting still on the ground with his blade over his knee and an oilstone in hand.

"I need my…I wanted something from the bag, but he won't move."

In a moment, the man had set his sword aside and was up, walking to the horse and patting it and stooping for the bag like it was nothing. He dropped it by her feet but didn't walk off, pausing when she flushed and pointing out, "It isn't just you who fears him."

He was so close just now, and she'd nearly forgotten how tall he was. Being just of a height with his chest, she was bathed in the broad shadow of his shoulders as she peered up at his unkempt chin. "Why do you suppose he gets on with you?" she wondered. "In Kings Landing, someone told me he bites everyone else."

He shrugged at her and glanced at the warhorse with something like fondness, though it was muddled with a sneer. "I feed him. I tend him." he said simply. "It's an arrangement."

"But the stable hands fed him, and he was a horror. It's just you he likes." She gazed at the monstrous black animal with reverence, his fur dark and sleek as velvet, and almost smiled when her look was returned with a loud snort.

The Hound stooped to get the brush from the bag and reached out to hold the horse by the bridle. "Come here," he told her. Stranger had been relieved of his saddle, and he stood still when his master ran a hand along his neck and shoulder. "No, around to his front, here. I've got him."

Sansa did as she was told, but her steps were measured. "What if he bites me?"

"He won't, not if you listen. Go on, feel his nose. Slowly."

She reached. The courser thought about tossing his head again, blowing and watching her warily, but the Hound held him fast and he didn't fight. A moment later, she was touching him, running her fingers down his smooth muzzle. It was lovely.

"There are oats in that sack." He showed her with a nod and she bent, taking just a little. "Hold your hand flat, fingers back. Like this."

And so she fed Stranger, and he didn't bite her. His downy lips tickled her palm and made her smile, and sometimes he shied away from her hand, but not always. She was petting his neck, slow and fluid, when she saw the Hound watching her. His eyes were so keenly fixed, it made her look away, but not before she'd seen the serenity hiding there. "Am I doing something wrong?"

"No." He let go of the bridle and started brushing down the horse's side. "You haven't smiled in a while is all. Watch him, now. Don't—"

His gentle observation had thrown her off, and she'd stopped paying attention. It was a dire mistake. She would never know whether it was out of irritation or want for more petting, but Stranger balked his head and knocked his muzzle against her shoulder with staggering force. She yelped in her panic and tripped over her own feet, landing hard on her bottom in a pile. She had barely the time to realize what had happened when the Hound lifted his dark eyebrow at her, and then he erupted.

His coarse laughter sawed at the air, shaking his shoulders and making the corners of his eyes glisten. The way his good side faced her, he _looked_ like a dog, scruffy and wide in the jaw, with snaggled canines that were larger than most and glinted when he grinned. For the first time, she noticed he was missing a tooth there, near his molars. Then, suddenly, she could see the face without the scar. It was just a face; just a hard, untidy face, but there was something new there, something young.

_Gods, he looks like a boy._

She had never seen him laugh so hard and so true, and it made her red in the face until she began to feel dizzy with the humiliation of it. He stooped to offer his hand, but she ignored it and got up on her own, leaving him to his wild amusement. Stranger didn't react at all.


	13. Chapter 13

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Well, for once, I'm writing a lot, so I decided to go ahead with both of these chapters and just upload one after the other. Please don't hesitate to let me know what you think of them both. You're all so amazing, every review I read gives me butterflies in my tummy and I just get ridiculous okay. Please don't stop._

_-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, images, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 13**

The night came on them in a gust of cool, northern wind. They had to wait until it dwindled some before trying to rekindle the fire, and Sansa did what little she could to help, pulling sticks from the pile he'd made and keeping the flames alive while he looked for more wood. To her delight, supper was more rabbit, but when he offered her a wooden bowlful, she took it in stark silence and ate without looking at him. His unbridled glee at her fall had gotten to her, and she'd stewed in it until her sore dignity grew into a state of crossness that was rare for her.

He either hadn't noticed her sulking, or didn't mind it, seeming unusually contented as he chewed and drank his wine and listened to the humming of insects in the trees. Eventually, his new easiness fed into her, and she felt herself relaxing, pulling the meat apart with her fingers and sopping up the grease with the last chunk of their stale bread. "This is very good," she said. It was gratitude, not only for the meal, but for all of it. She hoped he would see.

"It's no kingly feast," he remarked, rough and wry, testing her.

"No," she agreed. "The gods are good. If Joffrey were here, I might poison myself."

The Hound curled the corner of his mouth up at her, and she knew she had passed. "Mad one, him."

She was surprised she had never thought about it, how well the Hound must have known Joffrey. He had guarded the prince since he was born, and wouldn't have needed rumors or gossip to pass his own judgment. No, he had known him truly, perhaps even as well as his own parents and siblings had. Mulling over her words first, Sansa tilted her chin up at him and inquired, "Was he truly mad? Before I knew how he hated me, he would change so quickly, kind and then cruel. I wondered if, perhaps…"

Something in the Hound's face bothered her then. The cynicism was still there, and there was humor too, but less and less. "The boy was never right," he said. "Not always so vicious, like you knew him, but not right." When she nodded gravely at him, he seemed to sense her unease and, instantly, the gloom was gone from him. "You know he used to wet his sheets. When he was a boy."

Her eyes drew a bit wider, and she must have looked strange, struggling to suppress her grin the way she did. "Goodness, how old?"

"Too old."

She had almost giggled, but it came out in a little huff through her nose instead, and she stuffed another bite into her mouth. Something else tumbled out, some question she hadn't planned on asking, a sudden mumble around the food. "How old are you?"

He furrowed his brow at her. "Twenty-eight." Then he was frowning.

_Only that?_

She had thought him older, though she didn't know by how much. Still, it made her feel intolerably young, and her shoulders sank some. "Oh."

_Eleven years my elder. He must think me such a nuisance._

"Eat." He was darkening again, and though he was the one consuming more wine than food, the meat was good, and she minded him without complaint.

Usually, he sat so she was on his right, with the unscathed half of his face toward her, but tonight he'd forgotten. When she glanced up at him next, just for a moment, she saw something spark within the twists of his scar, a glinting shard below the cheek bone. Blinking, she realized it was a tooth, peeking out between two knotted strands of skin and tendon. The oddness of it gave her pause, and for a moment too long. He knew.

"So," he rasped, and he met her eyes, chilling her. His own were shining like an animal's in the firelight. "The bird still has to sneak her stares." He had stopped chewing and she hadn't seen. It must have been seconds ago that he'd caught her, and she saw the change as it happened, his voice falling back into its grit and his shoulders tightening.

"I wasn't—"

"You were." He leaned toward her, and she didn't move. "Don't lie to me."

_Is it the wine?_

She looked away, quickly, and cleared her throat, but it came out sounding more frustrated than remorseful. "I hadn't meant to anger you."

"But you were looking, and not at me. At _it_."

"I was," she admitted, and then she looked right at him, her gaze fixed, as he had done so often to her.

"And how do you like it?" The smirk he met her with was mirthless and, for some reason she couldn't place, it aggravated her, stirred her temper. "Does it remind you of the sweet knight you hope will sweep you into his arms and carry you off?" he leered on. "Does it make you so very glad he won't look like this?"

She could spot it now. She'd been with him long enough that she could tell when he was going to bark one of his awful, joyless laughs, so different from the way he'd laughed earlier. And she knew she'd sooner be spared of it, so without thinking or weighing any of her words, she interrupted him. "No. It doesn't make me glad. It doesn't make me anything. It's only…"

He quieted, as she had wanted him to, and watched her in the firelight, waiting for her to finish. He looked curious, perhaps, or pained, or impudent, she couldn't tell which. His expression was formidably guarded before her, giving her no option but to speak freely and hope not to misstep.

"It's only skin," she muttered, and her gaze didn't falter.

"Is it."

"Yes." Feigning complacency, she went back to her bowl and ripped at the bread, hoping he wouldn't see how her fingers trembled. "And sometimes I look at it, but it doesn't bother me."

"But it did before." Rather suddenly, he dropped the wineskin on the ground by her thigh.

"It was all I knew before. Now it's only there, part of the rest." Since he seemed to want her to, she picked up the skin, and his eyes moved with her as she took a pull for as long as she could, gulping down the sour red until her eyes welled and she had to lower it with a cough. When she gave it back to him, his stare had softened, but the scowl stayed, and the silence in between came up to imprison her in its uncertainty.

_But it isn't only there, _she knew._ It's him, it made him._

_'It'll get easier,'_ he had said to her after taking her from the Keep. _'It'll scar.'_

_'That shouldn't have happened.'_

He had been kind, and she had been cold, and now he was slighted by it.

She wasn't prepared for the guilt that came after, icy and abrupt and weighing itself in her chest. "S—" she started, but found herself confused. _Gods be good, do not say 'Ser'._ There was a sigh, and then she settled for honesty, saying flatly, "I don't know what to call you."

He looked her way, his mouth half full, and now she could read him again. He seemed mystified that she would want to name him at all. "I don't bloody care what you call me," he said at length. "Just not _Ser_, or _Lord_, or any of your other pretty falsehoods."

"And 'Hound' is not false?" She couldn't understand why she would say something so presumptuous, but it fell from her lips without warning or pause.

"I'm closer to being a hound than any of those paltry titles you would have me bear."

"What about being a _man_?" Her words seemed to have crouched in her throat, waiting to leap from her teeth as soon as she parted them, irrepressible. She had done this with Joffrey at times, said things she shouldn't have, truths that wouldn't be prevented. It had been much more dangerous then. "Do you truly think yourself more a king's beast than a man?"

"You'd best stop this." He was very close, glowering at her, and the dark thing was there, hanging like a shadow in his frown lines. "How I think's not your bloody concern, and I don't much like it when you squawk at me like this. Just like in King's Landing, little squawking bird."

She didn't stop. "Men think, not dogs. And men have names." There, he was riling. She saw it, and her mouth fell agape, a tremor finding its way up her back.

_Stop. Let it be._

"I warn you." His voice was quiet, edging a whisper, but it scared her more than it had when he was loud, and he detected her distress. His eyes had been boring holes in her, but then he caught himself, pushed it back. "Stop prying and eat your food," he grunted, vexed. "Or don't. Fuck if I care. But you'll stop this."

He had built a wall between them, hasty in his need for it, and now she wouldn't get through. She looked down to see how her hands had become fists in her lap, the bowl forgotten on one knee, and hated how meager she sounded when she whispered into the fire. "You didn't stop." His silence made her lift her eyes, only to find his naked perplexity.

"What?"

"In King's Landing," she reminded him, collected but careful. "You never stopped. Prying, and poking, and…and tormenting me with your ceaseless judgment."

When it happened, she was too stunned to know what he'd done, much as she had been when she was knocked down by the horse. Then she saw her bowl in the coals. In a sudden fit, he'd knocked her dinner into the fire. "_Judgment_," he snarled. Then he glanced at her food smoldering in the cinders, and appeared all the more irritated that he'd done it. "You couldn't even—"

"I know I wouldn't look, but you were always so swift to criticize me." She had to tell him, though she knew she'd been defeated. The tears had come. "When I left Winterfell, I knew _nothing_—"

"And still know nothing."

"—and you hated me for it. _Hated_ me." It was all tumbling out of her now and her chest seized, trying to bury her words and make her weep, but she wouldn't. "You could see I was trying to be strong, but you wanted me to think myself a coward. And if I _was_ brave, you broke me of it to keep me weak." There it was. She hadn't known what she'd wanted to begin with, but now it was hanging there in the open, dangerous in its potential to render some detrimental repercussion, or to thicken the wall.

The quiet was impenetrable. He sat there, hunched over, with his elbows perched on his kneecaps and his palms rubbing together. Sansa could hear her heart beating in her ears, and when he finally moved, she breathed out as if released from some spell. The Hound looked down at his iron pot, which was still almost full of meat, and he never looked at her as he put it in her lap and pulled himself to his feet. She heard him go a few paces and then stop, and she turned to find his back to her. His voice was strange. "That wasn't…that is untrue."

Softly, she only asked, "Then?"

But he left her there with her question and went to check on the horse. A minute later, he was lying on his blanket with his back to the fire and the wineskin tucked under his arm. Rubbing the wetness from her eyelashes and cheeks, Sansa sniffled and looked down at the pot still warm on her legs. Her eyes slid to her own bowl lying in the ashes, and she knocked it out with her boot before bending over the pot and wolfing down rest of her dinner.

**…**

When she stopped on her way to her bedding, he wasn't moving. She wrung her hands, watching him the dark, and decided he couldn't be sleeping, not with all the noise she was making in the leaves. So, to the glow of the fading coals and the broad back of the Hound, she made her declaration.

"I'm going to call you Sandor," she stated, sounding small, but stalwart. He didn't shift. "Do you protest?"

Nothing. Perhaps he was asleep, then. Suddenly exhausted, she slumped into her bed on the forest floor, getting her toes beneath the fur and wriggling down into it like a mouse in a burrow. Then she rolled over, facing away from him, and tried to go to sleep thinking of a hot bath and plates of sweet cakes, rather than any of the monsters that kept prying pitilessly into her awareness. For whatever reason, she ended up settling on a different memory before slipping into the void, one of Sandor Clegane laughing like thunder, and his steely eyes smiling quietly as he told her it had been a long time since she'd smiled.

She would never know it, but he lay there on the ground as he had been for many long minutes, his arms folded, his molars gnawing ceaselessly at his cheek, and his brooding eyes open.


	14. Chapter 14

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-I know this isn't much, but the next chapter is Tumbleton and the inn. I just wanted to push out a little short something to tie things together, and I've been trying to figure out where to put this dream she has for a while now. My writing is weak and cumbersome today, and nothing sounds right when I read it, so here goes nothing._

_-I got so many reviews for my last two chapters, and I just have to thank you all so much for that... it was so inspirational. I love you all._

___-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, images, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 14**

_The floor was deadly cold. Sansa's toes were numb as she shuffled forward another step, barefoot upon the stone. Where were her shoes? She couldn't remember. Perhaps Arya had hidden them. The castle was dark here, and the walls had been stripped of all tapestries and torches, gray and naked and stretching on and on. She could see just well enough to pick up her pace, and ran the fingertips of one hand along the wall so she wouldn't fall. Squinting in the gloom, she thought she saw feeble the glow of a torch ahead. It must have been around the next corner, far, far down the narrow hall._

I have to get back to court.

_A fright struck her. She didn't know where she was. The balls of her feet scuffed against the floor as she tried to go faster, but the weight of her dress was too much. It was all silk and thick brocade, and it felt heavier with every breath. Here in the chill of the castle, she could see herself exhaling in little white vapors that vanished behind her as she hurried along._

It's too cold. Why is it so cold? I'll find father, he won't tell anyone I got lost. He won't tell Joffrey.

_The width of the hallway felt suddenly smaller and she stopped, searching and catching her breath. The light ahead was no closer, a dim, playful glow that only shrank away with every step she had taken. She was so very tired and had considered going back the way she had come, when a sound came whispering down the corridor behind her. The fingers of fear ascended her spine as she turned her head, ever so slowly, to look into the black._

_She didn't want to look there. She wanted to turn back and find the light, to run to it, but the sound came again, this time a dark, rumbling purr drumming up from the castle's insides. Fear seized her and she couldn't move. Her fingertips quivered at her sides, tapping silent against her skirts. Again, the sound, and now, she heard it clear and close. It was not human._

_She spun and was running. The weighty skirts pulled at her as she fled toward the torchlight, feet slapping and grazing the floor. She felt her toe catch on a gap between two stone tiles, and gasped when it jammed, but the pain was leagues away._

_"Father! Arya?" Her cries were choked and swallowed in gulps for air as her lungs began to burn. The burdensome dress was nearly unbearable now, like dragging bags of sand, and she curled her fingers into the skirt, wrenching it up and away from her ankles as she ran. "Help me! Please!" The thing was near now. She could hear it in pursuit behind her, its great feet landing in muted thumps. It was some beast, she realized, and it was hunting her as its prey. She dared not look._

_Just as the tears began to stream back from her eyes, the light started to draw closer, but so did the creature._

Run. Run. Gods, don't kill me.

_She saw the corner, a hall turning off to the left. Ripping around it, she almost fell from the abrupt change in direction, and it took every fiber of control she had to make herself come to a halt. There was no torch at all. There had been light – she was certain – but when she rounded the corner, it dimmed until it was no brighter than moon glow. She knew now why she had stopped, and the tiny hairs at the base of her neck prickled. She couldn't see it, not clearly, but she knew it was there; another thing, another beast, pawing toward her like a bent wraith._

_No, an animal. It was some sort of animal, and she couldn't get around it. Her heart seized. Petrified and immobile, she stood trapped and waiting to die, and the black thing before her stepped out of its shadow until she could see it for what it was. It was stooped low to the floor, its ashen irises glinting beneath the hostile curl of its brow, with a snout long and marred with ancient bites and claw marks, and tapered ears laid flat against its wide head._

_The dog was as tall as her waist, with a coat black as pitch, and the growl that came up was terrible, low and deep and cracking in its throat. As it crept forward again, glaring at her, sizing her, it lips pulled back from its teeth, and its tongue lapped up to prime its jaws between aggressive, snapping barks. It was mad, and it was going to kill her, rip her throat out. _

_The monster that had been chasing her was so close now, she could feel its breath landing hot on her back, rancid with flesh and bones and old blood, but she didn't move her head to look. She only saw the dog, quaking with menace as it sank to a coil. Screaming, Sansa balked and shielded her face with her arms. And the dog leapt at her._

_No. Not at her, _over_ her. In her terror, she had sunk to the floor and the dog had cleared her in one vault. It had gone for the other creature, attacked it wildly. Her face buried in her hands, she saw none of it, but the sound was horrible. The hungry, rolling purr had risen into a roar that deafened her, and she could hear the dog over it all, ripping and snarling._

_ Crawling now, she pulled herself to a wall and pressed against it, opening her eyes to see the bright blaze of the torch. Finally, the torch. It was above her now, waiting in a sconce, and she was reaching for it when she caught sight of the shadows. One was the dog and one was the other thing, twice the size and large of head and paw. Their silhouettes were bounding at each other across the wall, tearing, falling back, bounding again. Panting, her fingers felt the wood of the torch, and just as she pulled it down, its flame dwindled and was gone, and she was alone with the bloody tumult of the beasts._

**…**

She woke in a still panic and didn't know where she was. Lying rigid in the furs, it took seconds for it to come back to her; the Keep, the horse, the dewy quiet of the trees. And the Hound.

She winced at the hardness of the ground beneath her bedding and rolled over, looking in the dark. He was there, his breath slow and deep as a bear's. He had shifted and was facing her now, his arms crossed tight and his ruined side pressed down to the thin woolen blanket he'd tossed across the earth. The unspoiled side was still and passive with sleep, and she was amazed to see such peace. He looked more his age now, though terribly world-weary.

She didn't know where his top cover was. He had gone to bed ill-tempered and had probably forgotten about it. She wondered if he was cold. This night was cooler than the rest, and he'd given her the only roll of furred bedding, with a leather pad stitched to the bottom to keep out dirt and moisture. Every night, he'd slept on the soil without a word.

Turning onto her back, she stared up at the cluttered web of branches, making the dark indigo sky look like broken glass, fragmented and threatening to shatter down on them. Dawn was close, and she closed her eyes. She had upset him, she remembered, upended his resolve until he'd thrown her food into the fire and she had to eat the rest of his.

_He had wanted it, but he gave it to you. He was sorry._

And so, falling back into slumber, she forgave him his enmity. Sandor had been positively beastly about it all, that was true, but he still deserved a name.

**…**

"You'll not go looking like that."

Sansa was combing her tresses beneath the scattered shade of the canopy. She stood near Stranger, close enough to see if he would toss his mane or nip at her, but far enough away to evade him if he did. At Sandor's remark, she stopped moving and just looked at him.

"You'll tie up that hair." He was raking dirt over their ashes with his boot and had once more donned his hauberk and plate. He looked even bigger now, and she felt dwarfed by him when he lumbered to her, creaking with leather and heavy steel. He had his longsword strapped across his back, and its hilt stirred the air with the swivel of his shoulders.

Her voice hoarse from pine sap and pollen, she cleared her throat softly. "Do you have something? To bind it."

He ended up giving her the cord from the neckline of one of his shabby tunics, and she wound her auburn waves into a tight, ordinary bun while he saw that all the saddlebags were packed and closed. Stranger whinnied, irritated by the familiar feel of the saddle he'd been free of for a day, and Sansa frowned at the horse's testiness.

"Is it far?" she wondered, reaching to see if the courser would let her stroke his muzzle, but he snorted and jerked his head away.

"Not very." Sandor was looking her over, his head canted down at her, and she stood still when he put a gloved hand atop her crown to turn her face gently upward. Despite the weight of his gauntlet, she was remarkably patient with the inspection, letting him move her this way and that until he pulled his brow together and let her go.

"Do you think people will ask?"

He shook his head. "You've been roughed up, they'll see. But they won't ask." Then he went to the saddle and grabbed the horn. "Breakfast on the horse," he told her, and he heaved himself up.

Pressing a finger to her sore bottom lip, she wondered how she would look with scars, but hadn't the time to upset herself with it. Sandor was holding Stranger steady, waiting, so she put the toe of her boot in the stirrup and reached. He gave her his left hand, and she felt the round muscles of his palm contracting as she was pulled, almost her entire weight hauled up by his forearm and elbow. Swinging her leg over, she wriggled behind him and held tight to the straps of his scabbard, but she felt him tug at her sleeve, pulling her arm around his mailed waist.

"You hold, now," he warned her. "We won't be going slowly."

**…**

The sky floated over them like an inverted sea, the fast-moving clouds white and foamy with little gray underbellies not quite weighted enough to rain. The trees had gotten thinner too, mostly just saplings and young pines that drifted by in small clumps. Sandor was quiet, leaning in the saddle and kicking Stranger into a trot from time to time, when the ground was flat. Sometimes, he would turn his head and she'd see the scar, close now, like it had been in her chambers at the Red Keep. The misfortune of it moved her sympathy, but only that. It didn't unnerve her anymore.

She was ripping a bite from one of the only remaining pieces of dried meat, chewing determinedly at the tough, salty fibers, when she heard him growl out a sigh. "Hells. I left my bloody knife."

"No," she said, swallowing the bite. He hadn't left it at all. He just didn't see it while he was gathering things because Sansa had become fascinated with it and thought to see if she had the strength to pull it from the tree. It had required both hands, but she was pleased with herself when it came loose. "It's in the bag with your helm. I found the sheath by your boots, and we were packing, so I packed it."

He turned his head, his chin hovering over his right shoulder. "You know how sharp that blade is?"

He was scolding her. She could hear it in his tone. "I was very careful," she insisted mildly. "It's only a knife and I'm old enough not to cut myself." She didn't like sharp things, and she was still young and green, but she wasn't a girl anymore.

He looked forward again, his shoulders swaying with Stranger's gait, and his silence told her he had accepted her assertion. He'd been like this since their quarrel by the fire, stern and somber and talking to her only when he had to. It took a long time, but he eventually nodded at the passing trees and said, "Good that you got it. That's a good knife."

Somewhere along the way, Sansa spotted a threadbare little trail winding across the ground alongside them. It looked more like a game trail than anything, but over the minutes, it widened to a footpath as they went, nothing more than packed dirt and pockets of gravel. Sandor guided Stranger into it. "We're close now," he said. Once the surface of the path was even and empty of stumps and ditches, he brought the horse up to a canter.

She stuffed the meat away and held tight around his middle, the mail cold against her arms. The trees were very sparse now, and little one-room houses were starting to pop up near the narrow road, their roofs either thatch or old wood covered in moss. A raggedy little boy sat on one of the porches peeling potatoes, while a very old woman stood staring at them from the front steps as they passed.

When they left the tree line altogether, she looked across the grassy hills to see the river Mander, lovely and green and shimmering in the light of day. "There," she heard him say, and she lifted herself up in the saddle to peer over his shoulder. Tumbleton wasn't far from the bank, a petite cluster of buildings with the road leading right up through them. Stranger pawed and snorted, and Sandor let him go, trotting down the road and into the valley until they broke into a full gallop.

Sansa breathed in sharp, shutting her eyes against the wind, and pressed tighter against his hauberk. She was pushing down her fear of falling from the horse, summoning thoughts of warm bread and a bed to sleep in, when she heard the low timbre of his chuckle over the whip of the breeze in her ears. A moment later, his gloved fingers closed gingerly around her gripping arm, and she knew she wouldn't fall.


	15. Chapter 15

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_____-I'm officially back in school for the summer semester. Ugh. But at least I got a little writing done over my break._

_____-Here's part 1 of Tumbleton._

_____-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, images, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 15**

They were meandering toward the broken-down gate when Sandor spoke coarsely to her, the way he did when he meant for her to listen close. "You're not to talk to anyone," he warned. "There's no need, and you're already a sight with your look and your garb."

She was peering around him, watching the smoking chimneys draw closer. A thin gray haze tarnished the sky above the rooftops, making the petite knot of houses look like it was breathing; a sleeping dragon in an otherwise naked valley. Glancing up at the mess of dark hair fringing the base of Sandor's neck, the smooth scales of his steel plate scuffed against her upper arms as she queried, "My look?"

He shook his head at that, like it was beyond her, something she wouldn't understand. "If you think you look like them," he reminded her, "you're wrong. And talking only brings questions, so you'll do none of it."

She let go of him long enough to reach up and check that her hair was still firmly coiled back. "And if they talk to me?" she fretted. "What am I to do if they ask me things? Am I to be a mute?"

Though it was an innocent question, he straightened his back and turned his face again, talking out the side of his mouth as he rocked in the saddle. "Aye, that's just what you'll be. I knew a boy like that once, some cousin of a cousin. Boy never spoke, not since he was born. Never cried, just made odd noises when he was having a fit." His voice always took on a softness when he spoke of things long passed, never quite clear of its gravel, but gentled some. It was a curious thing. "He was touched, that one. Went mad sometimes, but mostly just quiet."

She brushed her teeth along the scab at her lip and frowned at the back of his head. She'd given him the idea, she saw, and regretted it. "I'm not touched," she muttered, but he passed her comment over like it was entirely irrelevant.

"What's a girl's name you hate?"

His question seemed so unrelated their discussion, it left her blinking before she could reply. "Why must I hate it?"

"It won't be your name for long, better you don't like it."

"I…" She thought, and a moment later, the answer came to her in the form of a pig-faced girl who was the daughter of some Stark bannerman she couldn't remember. They were very little, and the girl had been a terrible nuisance, only wanting to be the princess or the hero in every game they played. She had produced false, wailing tears when Sansa had accidentally stepped on her skirt, ripping the hem, and then told everyone she'd done it on purpose. As trivial as the memory was, she had never forgotten the girl's name. "Tilda," she said easily.

"Until you're back with a Stark, that's your name. You're not like to need it, but people expect names, even from touched girls that can't speak." There was a wryness to his voice, a hint of his callous humor for her situation, and it made her sulk all the way past the gates.

Tumbleton was a muddy little settlement, where everything smelled of fish and horses and chicken droppings. By almost every dwelling, there was a chicken coop or a henhouse, some on stilts to keep them out of the soggy ground, and some just fenced-in patches of grass, where fat red hens and chicks scratched and cackled and pecked at one another. The road was like one large dried up puddle, dotted with crusty depressions from hooves and shoes, and men worked at long tables by the banks of the river, scaling and gutting freshwater fish. Strips of it had been cut thin, salted, and hung to dry, and Sansa thought of the salt fish Sandor had given her when she'd grown tired of pork. Perhaps it had come from right here, in this tiny sagging town that she'd never even heard of.

"Stay close to me," he was telling her, his voice low. "Wherever you go, stay where I can see you, and when I tell you to do something, you do it."

"Do you know this place?" she whispered to his back. "Is it dangerous?"

"No more than most shit towns, but a girl like you can be swept up in a moment, no matter where." His manner took on its familiar bitterness then, as he added, "You've no castle guards here to look after your pretty head."

She knew what it was to be swept up, to be hunted down and dragged away like some wounded fawn. It was an awful, hellish thing. "I've you," she muttered, and she deliberately ran the words together like he had, lazy and informal.

"You do," he conceded. "But I'd sooner keep my sword clean, so don't wander off. No more talking 'til we're alone."

Obedient, Sansa closed her mouth and sat back, but then Stranger spooked. She grabbed wildly as she was nearly thrown, and Sandor caught her arm, his fingers iron as he jerked it forward, pulling her into him. Then he cursed and spat just as two skinny little boys tore off across the road in nothing but pairs of holey roughspun breeches. One of them slipped and went chest-first into the mud before clawing to his feet and disappearing into a gap between houses. They'd raced right in front of Stranger, and the horse had very nearly reared. "Bloody…" was all Sandor said, and he spat his displeasure at the ground before kicking the destrier on.

They went first to the inn, a squat old building with a second story that was perched on the far side of town where the main road went by. The sign was unreadable, and the roof needed work, but its stony frame appeared otherwise intact. Sandor dismounted and walked Stranger the rest of the way to the stables, only helping Sansa down once he'd found a stablehand. The young man that came in stood astounded at both Sandor and the great beast that was his horse, and he seemed to be in a sort of daze as he was instructed.

"What are you bloody staring at?" Sandor grated at him. "Just leave 'im, I said. He'll let you take off his tack, just don't touch him after that unless you fancy getting kicked. Hay, water, oats, none else. You listening, boy?"

There was something like a nod, and Sandor eyed him severely for a moment before shouldering one of their leather saddlebags. He had left the bed roll and camp goods with the horse's gear, but his helm, their coins, and all other valuables would be taken in with them, and he'd stuffed the single bag until he couldn't. To Sansa, he gave the empty roughspun sack, and she kept pace with him as he went back out to the earthen street. He stopped at the inn's old oaken door, and so did she, gazing up at him with the sack held tight in her fists behind her. "Don't look too hard at anyone," he said, "and stay by me."

With the sun still out, most tables were vacant, with only a few grimy travelers sharing a brew in one corner, and a lone drinker huddled in the other. They might have looked at her, but she wouldn't have known; she kept her eyes on the scabbard at Sandor's back for nearly the entire duration of his exchange with the innkeep and for the first time, she noticed the three dogs hammered into the dark steel. It was the smell that made her lift her eyes: baking bread and meat and grease from the kitchen, and charred, crackling logs in the hearth. There were two pigs skewered over the coals for the dinner crowd, one a suckling and the other half-grown, and a pot of something steaming from an iron hook.

The room was lit by the sun coming in through the windows, a wide beam of white light sparkling with dust particles, and two busty girls were seated near the fire, their bare feet propped up on a table. One was drying clay tankards pulled from a soapy vat on the floor, and the other shucked the meat from steamed river clams. While her friend was staring anxiously at Sandor's burns, the girl with the clams saw Sansa looking, and the smirk she gave her was a sardonic one, tinged with resentment. The both of them had hard faces. Sansa averted her eyes and hugged herself, standing there in her boy's britches, and only hoped the snarl of her stomach didn't grow loud enough to call the innkeep's attention.

He was a red-faced man, no taller than Sansa, and with a pot belly that made his britches sag every so often, so he was tugging them up all through their exchange. "Fine, Ser, two baths then, but the tub's in the room at the end of the hall, an' you'll have t'wait yer turn. I don't want any fights." As a perk, he added, "We clean it out e'ry few mornings."

"Does it lock?" Sandor was eyeing the place, looking everywhere but at the innkeep.

"It does."

"And the room, does it?"

"Not yers. We've some fixing t'do. Only one room left with a lock, an' I gave it to him there, not an hour before you came in."

Sansa's eyes slid to a man sitting alone with his ale, his prying black eyes set in a pool of dark circles as he watched them. Even in the dim light of the tavern, the shade of his skin was much darker than the others', and his waist-length hair was sleek and black as dragon glass. His garb, too, was strange, and he rested his palm on the hilt of the blade strapped to his side, curved and naked.

Sandor knew the man could hear, and he watched him expectantly. Something brushed Sansa's arm, the mild touch of Sandor's wrist, and she stepped inconspicuously sideways, letting him eclipse her from sight. With her eyes on the floorboards, she couldn't see the foreigner now, but when his answer came, it was apathetic and relaxed.

"I've already paid," he lilted, his voice rich and smooth as cream. "But a lock, I do not need, if half of my expense was returned to me."

She wondered if Sandor had bristled at that. His tone wasn't entirely compliant. "You want me to pay half your room and my own. For a bloody lock."

"If you need it so, then yes. I have not even gone in."

A moment went by before Sandor budged. "Done."

Gratitude stirred in her chest as she heard the shuffle of boots on the floor, and the transaction was made. She leaned to peer around Sandor's arm to see the black-haired man sauntering back to his table with coin in his hand, and then the innkeep spoke up again. "If there's nothing else, Ser, supper's at sunset."

**…**

Outside, the sky had grown dull and overcast, and the wind was picking up, nipping gently at Sansa's cheeks. Walking abreast, they went to the back of the inn and along the river bank, behind a row of decrepit homes and away from the dusty street. The heels of Sansa's boots bit into the soft earth on the bank, staining them with brown mud, but she managed to avoid an expansive puddle as they passed a pig pen. She looked with curiosity at the scattered shell middens by the water, piled with fish bones and the remains of freshwater clams.

They lived simply, these poultry farmers and fishermen, and their livelihood was dependent on the river. As the two of them passed, the line of fishermen working at the long wooden table by the water were rushing to clean up their mess of slime and scales, taking down dried strips of fish and looking up at the sky. Sansa looked too, and then gazed up at her silent companion, having to take twice as many steps just to keep up with him.

Certain no one could hear, she whispered, "It's going to rain. I think." She said it more for the sake of comfort than anything else, made nervous by the unfamiliar place and its inhabitants. She had never been so frightened of strangers in her life, and found herself looking behind her almost constantly.

He didn't slow, grunting, "Good. This place needs a bath."

When she followed Sandor back to the road stretching between the buildings, they were all the way on the other side of Tumbleton. Scattered commoners were ambling about, most of them wheeling carts to shelter and feeding their animals before the rain. The two boys they had encountered earlier were sitting on the step of a house, fighting over some small thing. The smaller one snatched it from the other boy's fingers and took off, but he didn't get far at all before his pursuer caught him and palmed him in the back of his head. Sansa almost smiled as she watched their tussle in the mud, and she saw it was some sort of food they were bickering over. The older boy went red in the face when the thief popped it into his mouth before it could be taken.

"Innkeep said there's a merchant some place," Sandor was telling her. "Not much of a market here, but it'll serve." Sansa wondered if he was only conversing with her to better ignore the stares he was drawing from Tumbleton's scant inhabitants.

_That must be awful._

Then she realized they were staring at her too, especially the women. Girls and maids gaped at her clothes with wonderment, while the elder ones gave her stern glances to assert her clear deviance from the norm. Feeling the blood go to her cheeks, she stopped meeting their eyes altogether.

Sandor halted by a tumbledown stall made up of wooden shelves and a thatch roof, where a spindly man was taking beets from a display frame and putting them into basket on the ground. His woman was helping him, hoisting the baskets of food goods and taking them into a nearby house to be stored until a sunnier day. Sansa spotted a modest autumn garden behind the home, and there was a moment of understanding when she grasped that these three elements encompassed their entire life together; the house, the stall, the garden. There was such simplicity there, but she did not pity them. Instead, the strangest sense of longing came over her, and she saw herself there, tending the garden, bartering and haggling, scraping and saving for a new horse and cart. Living each day as just a day.

Sandor looked down at her, pulling her out of her head. "The bag," he bid her, and she handed him the cloth sack without a sound.

The tradesman dropped the two beets he was holding, and he seemed caught between fear and relief at the sight of his tall armored customer. He did peek at Sansa, sparingly at first, and then not at all after Sandor looked at him hard. The man didn't have all the wares he was asked for, but they made do. The only weaponry he carried was a small dagger with a plain wooden grip, its leather sheath worn and used, but it was bought without a thought.

Next came the want for a block of plain lye soap, but the man suggested his wife's special batch, made just the week before. "There's no tallow," he explained, "an' the lye's been gentled with olive oils from Dorne and rose water. It's milder, see."

"And more costly."

"But, for the girl, m'lord. Gentler."

Sansa watched the man's kindly eyes, a pale and watery blue. Initially, she thought Sandor would demand what he had asked for and throw out a warning for good measure, but he spoiled her presumption with a stiff nod and a glance her way. Again, she felt the warmth of her appreciation kindling, and it made her watch him more closely now, noticing the mannerisms that made him. He always stirred his jaw when he weighed his choices, gnawing habitually at the insides of his mouth, and his eyes seemed to change with his mood; cold, grim steel, then stormy and stubborn, then bright and pale as the overcast sky. He bartered on and she just stood there, watching him fondly until some thought intruded, some dark thing. In her mind's eye, she saw the green-lit clouds over the Blackwater, smelled the blood on him, remembered the way he had leered. And then reason came flooding after, wise and immovable.

_Yes, he is that too. Remember it._

After buying a mending kit with a needle and thread, Sandor appeared taken aback when the tradesman's wife threw in a batch of herbal wash for no cost at all. "She's got good teeth," the woman tittered. "Best keep them so." Immediately, Sansa closed her lips and looked up at Sandor, embarrassed at all the attention she seemed to call, but she only saw intrigue there, and something like amusement, hiding in the slate gray of his eye.

With their new goods rattling in the sack, he pulled it over a shoulder and asked after some place for clothes and leather. The merchant pointed to a shack across the road, with walls that were being gradually devoured by leafy vines. Aside from the sparse vegetable gardens, it was the only green thing in town, and it looked quite odd standing between a pig yard and a drab storage shed.

"Woman there calls herself a healer," the tradesman said, "but she's always at the needle. Sells clothes an' poultices, an' she tans a good hide. Midwife too." And so they went.

They were halfway to the shack when Sandor said an odd thing. "This one you can talk to, but only her. You'll need things."

The healer's hut was a den of fragrant herbs, with bolts of handspun fabrics and leather goods lining the walls. By the time the rain had just begun to drizzle outside, soft and cool as a falling mist, Sandor had gotten her a heavy cloak, a second shirt, and a smaller pair of knee-high boots that were so newly made, they still had dusty leather shavings left in the toes.

_These boots are hers. She made them for herself._

The midwife seemed reluctant to let them go, at least until she glanced over Sandor's fine armor and saw the bag of coins he brought out. They fit well, and were bought with a fair amount, so they were handed over without complaint. Sansa donned the cloak as soon as it was in her hands, and she was tying up her new boots when Sandor eyed her. He gave no explanation, but unstrung the little pouch of coins from his hip and took her wrist so he could drop it into her palm.

"Get whatever you need," was all he said, and he set the sack of goods by her feet. "Don't be long." There was more there than she could possibly spend, though, and the trust startled her.

When he ducked out the door and shut it with the heel of his boot, Sansa was left in the haze of candlelight with naught but the midwife and her own silent apprehension. The woman's leaden stare was wandering over her, curious and suspicious and compassionate, all at once. From her look, she couldn't have been much older than Sansa's mother.

After too long, Sansa muttered, "I…do you make smallclothes?"

"I 'ave them." There was a nod. "You haven't even that?"

"I haven't anything."

The midwife took a step forward, her eyes going soft as she wiped her hands against her tattered skirt. "You be honest, love," she said. "That man, he looks half a beast. Was it him that did this to you?"

Sansa must have looked baffled. She had forgotten all about her old yellowing bruises. "No," she said quickly. "No, that was…someone else. He saved me from them."

"Well." The woman looked doubtful, but she didn't press. "Smallclothes, then."

Sansa ended up buying herself a tough gray traveling dress too, with a thick linen petticoat that wouldn't rip easily. The midwife questioned her about what she was to do about her moonblood when it came, and she was kind enough not to smile at Sansa's flushed complexion while they set to solving the issue with supplies. Thanking the woman for her help, Sansa was about to go when she spotted a furry pile of northern goat hides in one corner.

"There is something else," she ventured. "If I was to need a roll of bedding for travel, do you think you could make one? With fur lining and a leather bottom?"

"I can stitch a bed pad, aye. For the ground?"

Sansa nodded. "But we must leave by morning, I think."

"I'll 'ave it done by the night. If you can pay."

**…**

She found him waiting just outside, his back pressed against the outer wall to keep beneath the edge of the roof. He was watching as the sprinkle of rain pattered soft against the road, some of it gathering like little dew drops in his hair. "Get what you wanted?"

"Yes." She held up the sack of purchased items and frowned at the clouds. "Do you think it will stop?"

"Not for a while." Taking the bag and coin purse, he gave her something in exchange, pressing it to her palm before she could look. "We'll get back to the inn before it's coming down."

It was a seeded and candied date, a prized thing from Dorne, and she bit it in half before the thought of thanks and courtesy could even surface. "Where did you—"

"First place we went." He waved his hand, pointing offhandedly. "Wife of his gets her oils in trade from Dorne and had these as well. I paid too much for 'em and I don't bloody care."

Her tongue wasn't used to the sweetness, and it made her squint, but the other half went into her mouth straight away. "Pardon," she mumbled, chewing. "I haven't had one since the tourney."

"I bought a bagful." He looked at her, gave her his doggish smirk. "You can have your king's feast in the woods like a real bird."

She smiled her good smile, young and bright and without baggage, but it faltered when he looked curiously wounded by it, like it had almost been too much. He looked at the rain, and she cleared her throat, saying simply, "I love dates. Thank you, Sandor."

The left side of his mouth twitched, and in the trepidation of his frigid stare, she saw how his own name haunted him. She did not shrink beneath him though, and put a finger into her mouth to cleanse it of the date's sticky residue. It could take a long time for him to grow accustomed her way of speaking to him, and that was alright. "The clouds are breaking," he noted, his brief contentment withering away. "Walk fast."


	16. Chapter 16

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

___-I love you people. I just want to say that. I've developed this wonderful companionship with my readers and friends, here and on tumblr, and it means a great deal to me to read your words of encouragement and critique, so thank you. Thank you a thousand times._

___-Here is Part 2 of Tumbelton: The Tavern_

___-Things will be getting a little rough after this. Don't be mad at me. Westeros is a scary place._

___-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 16**

Dusk had fallen, and the inn at Tumbleton had become a rumbling beast, its insides warm and vital with the collective timbre of raucous men. Beneath their chatter sang the rain, hushed and pattering upon rippled glass windows. The autumn storm beyond the big oak door went unnoticed by all, save the cloaked and callow-eyed girl at a table farthest from the entrance. When the eyes of strangers stirred her unease, she found solace in the whispering rain, keeping still and impassive as she watched it weep against the nearest window.

Sandor had put her nearest the stairs, away from the bustle of comings and goings, and as close to their room as he could get her. He sat before her now, relieved of his armor but retaining the sword at his belt, and he was glancing away, into the hearth by the kitchen. Even without the plate and hauberk, his shoulders were still wide enough to block her from much of the room, though she couldn't be kept safe from every eye. The black-eyed man with the curved blade was there again, sitting on a wooden bench by the fire, and he could see her well enough. It was him that Sandor was truly looking at, she realized, and her spine tightened when the man gave her a slow, reverent nod, his sharp face aglow in the firelight. Then, smiling placidly, he submitted to Sandor's glare and looked elsewhere.

Facing her once more, Sandor growled his sigh and kneaded his neck the way he always did. The effort of the day's ride reflected through a thin sheen of perspiration along the bridge of his knotted nose, and then he was rubbing at that too. Warm light from the candle on their table played across his visage, softening it despite the frightful scars, and he dropped the hand to meet her eyes

"Here," he muttered, pulling at something. "Put your hand 'neath the table."

Perplexed, she regarded him cautiously before doing so, finding no sufficient reason to mistrust his intentions. When she slipped her arm beneath the polished wood tabletop, her eyes wandered over the room's busy occupants, and her breath caught when she felt his calloused fingers on her wrist, turning it over. Then there was something in her palm and she closed her hand around it before he let her go.

"Into your boot," he told her, and she dropped her eyes to find the little dagger he'd bought, fast in her grip.

Frowning some, she did as she was told and managed to stuff it down, sheath and all, into the gap between her boot and the flesh of her calf. She hadn't known it was for her, and she clasped her hands together on the table, furrowing her brows.

"Why did you think I bought it?" he asked her, leaning forward and hunching his shoulders. His eyes glinted. "I've all the steel I need." Disallowed from talking, she only watched him, the Tully blue full of misgivings and questions. "If you need it, you'll know. And it's small, no wider than your thumb, so it won't take much."

Sansa was staring at him, and she might have asked him what he meant, but then a bodice was hovering over them both. The tavern girl spilling up out of it was the same as the one who had been cleaning clams earlier, the one who had given Sansa her cold sneer. She was all grins now, with cheeks plump and rosy, and a gap between her two front teeth that was large enough to accommodate a quill and hold it there.

"Evenings, m'lord," she prattled, as if Sansa weren't there at all. "We've ale and wine, if y—" When Sandor acknowledged her, the true ruin of his burns tilted upward until the girl was looking them straight-on, and her bare, freckled shoulders flinched visibly before she was able to regain her senses and mumble, "W...what will you have, m'lord?" The fear was there, though, rattling with her breath and, better hidden, the revulsion.

Sandor watched her, his eyes searing with something Sansa knew well, something indignant. "Wine, both," he grated at her, and the girl only nodded, over and over, too many times. "What choice have we, for supper?" He was staring at her now, and her big amber eyes were somewhere between his face and the wall.

_I used to do that. I looked at him just that way, not really looking. Like I had my father's head._

Now, Sansa glanced away from the both of them while the tavern girl babbled something about roast pork or baked fish, and chowder with clams and potatoes, and mashed turnips and bread served alongside all of it. Watching the other side of the room, she saw a little girl no older than eight sitting upon the stone lip of the great fireplace, absently cranking the last remaining pig on its skewer with one hand and eating a plain boiled potato with the other, oblivious to all else.

"Three plates," Sandor was ordering. "One fish, one pork, one chowder, and all the rest. Two rounds of bread. Go on."

When Sansa looked at him next, he was brooding at the tabletop. The wine was brought quickly, this time by the innkeep, as the serving girl had evidently lost her nerve, and Sansa found herself staring wistfully at the kitchen while Sandor went to work on his cup. The smell of the food was mesmeric. "Drink," he told her eventually, and she looked back to see him wiping his mouth on his sleeve and watching her close. Some oaf barked a laugh from another table, and there was a solid thud as he slipped from his seat and onto the floor, but Sandor's eyes didn't stir.

Sniffing once, she succumbed, and lifted her pewter tankard with two hands, sipping and squinting at the way it burned her tongue. Over the rim of the metal, she saw the spread of his grin and the glint of his eye, tenacious and weathered, and then he drained half his cup all at once. By the time their dinner was delivered on a cluttered tray, Sandor had gone through two flagons, and she had barely gotten a quarter of hers down. Though, with an empty belly, the acrid wine already had her frazzled, and she watched through bleary eyes as he put both loaves of hot bread on one plate together and stood. "We're not eating in this shit tavern," he told her, shoving all of their utensils into the stew. "Tired of the eyes. Can you carry two?"

Hesitant, she turned to look at the stairway, then at the innkeep serving a group of bedraggled drinkers by the door, and decided eating elsewhere would suit her better. A moment after getting her feet, her head swam and then cleared, but she felt quite fine when she bent to pick up the two plates of fish and pork and turnips. The steaming smells made her hurry, and she heard him rambling at her to slow down as she scuffled after the steps to their room.

She was waiting by the door when he lumbered along behind her, and watched him set the plate of bread on the floor so he could free one of his hands and retrieve the key from his pocket. Hungry and impatient, her toes squirmed against the snug fit of her new boots, and she glanced down to admire the fresh leather in the torchlight. When the scabbard at Sandor's hip thunked upon the doorframe, she winced, looking anxiously down the hall. "Is this…are we permitted to eat upstairs?" she whispered at him. She felt like a child. "What are the rules?"

"Bugger the rules. They'll not do anything, what can they?" The door was open and she followed him in, having to use her behind to shut it again. The room was small and drafty, with a mildewed ceiling that sloped with the roof. The floorboards were timeworn and misaligned, and Sandor's coin had bought them only a low-set bed with a thick, straw-packed mattress, a wicker chair by the window, and a few flickering candles. The fireplace looked as though it hadn't been lit in years. Sandor set his two plates down on the floor beneath the window and was halfway out the door when he stopped to tell her, "I'm going for our wine. Go on and eat. You'll lock this door and not touch it 'til I'm back."

She rushed to leave her plates with the others and then did as she was bid, flipping the latch behind him and releasing the clasp of her cloak. Going right to their food, she spread the cloak out across the floor like a tablecloth and tried to arrange their pewter dishes nicely, divvying out the wooden utensils and moving the loaves of bread to the center. She had never used a dusty floor for a table before, but cared less than she thought she would. She did go and gather all of the candles from the mantle and used one to light those that had gone out, placing them in a little circle on the seat of the chair, with one reserved for the center of their primitive dinner setting. It looked quite pitiful, really, a supper for two vagrants glowing golden by the cracked and whitewashed wall, melting wax dripping right into the wicker.

Even so, something about it was close and cozy, and she had to shove her cheerless memories away when she thought of her wild Arya and her gentle Bran, who used to run off to make tiny campfires in the Winterfell stables when they wanted to play like bandits. She would come down from the castle with their Septa to beg Arya back to her lessons, but would often be ambushed by the both of them giggling and brandishing wooden swords. She had complained, but she never meant any of it, and—

_Don't._

Squatting over the food, she had gone stiff, and immediately went back to arranging when she heard Sandor's boot thudding at the base of the door. Careful to listen for the grind of his voice before admitting him, she opened it to find him holding two tankards of wine in one hand and a full wineskin in the other. At the odd face she gave him, he loosed a laugh that rattled her.

"My coin'll run this place for weeks once we're gone." Shouldering his way in and nudging the door shut, he paused when he saw the plates still full of food. "I told you to eat," he rasped, setting their cups on the floor and pulling his scabbard from its fastenings, but then he was studying her careful preparation and looking at her with his uncouth amusement. "Seven hells, girl. You've decorated the bloody floor." He glanced at the chair, which acted as a sort of candelabrum, and then leveled an ornery stare at her as he resigned himself to her prearranged seating.

The floor planks were chill against Sansa's bottom, but her face was still flush and warm from the wine and the tavern. When Sandor leaned his sword against the wall and descended to join her, it was like watching a great tree come tumbling down without any sound, slow at first, and then landing its weight against the ground all at once. They were peering at one another for half a moment, with the candlelight casting a monstrous twin of his hulking form along the far wall and her hands in her lap, but then they were both drowning wine and tearing into the bread.

The loaf was still piping hot in the middle, bathing Sansa's face in steam as she broke its crust. It tasted of yeast and rye seed, and the baked trout was better still, salted and herbed and drizzled with butter. The turnips were quite plain, but she didn't care, stuffing the mash into pockets of bread and forgetting her manners entirely. The chowder had been sitting at the center untouched, and Sandor had a mouthful of pork as he slid it across the planks to her. Tentative, she tried not to seem greedy as she spooned up a bite, and then the whites of her eyes flashed against the room's flickering light. "You simply must taste this," she mumbled.

And so the soup was shared. As the rain sighed cold against the window, they pulled their plates into their laps and ate like starved animals, first ravenous, then savoring, then utterly content in their mutual quiet. Sansa was just beginning to slow when Sandor finished off all the bread and grunted to his feet, leaving her the remaining bites of fish and chowder. She stared up at his height, her eyes lost in the wavering dance of shadows and, as he had in the forest, he twisted himself oddly, making something along his spine pull with a disconcerting crackle.

Refilling his flagon from the skin, he canted his head down at her, rumbling, "Last I looked, some shit was on his way to the bath. But I sent a girl to fill it for you, after." Then he left the wineskin by the chair and went to seat himself on the end of the bed, a hand on his drink and an elbow drawn across his knee.

Deftly ignoring his crude words, Sansa sat still on the floorboards and leaned her shoulder against the wall. "That was good of you," she stated softly, and she lifted her cup to her lips to pull in another sip. The wine was sitting easier in her belly now, with the dinner there to lessen its effect, and she helped herself to the skin, pouring as much as she dared. She felt quite safe in this instant, full of supper and warmed by drink, and she had only to remember to stay her mind from drifting, lest some recollection of her father or her mother or Jon or any of the others came down to engulf her.

_'Don't let it swallow you,' _he had said.

A sound like a stifled chuckle pulled her from the candle she'd been staring at, and she lifted her eyes to notice that Sandor was shaking his head at the floor, his hair hanging about his face in thin curtains.

"Is something the matter?" she murmured at him.

Instead of answering her right off, he had a long swill of his wine and then studied his other hand, turning it over in the gloomy light. "People like you," was all he said, and it didn't make a bit of sense.

"People?"

"In the market," he told her. "They'd not have been so easy, not with me. But you, they get one look at you, some of them, and want to give you things."

Mystified, she wrinkled the bridge of her nose in thought, but then she only shrugged her slender shoulders and fiddled with a button on her vest. "But I haven't spoken to anyone. Only the midwife."

"Doesn't matter. They don't need your pretty words out here." Another drink went down and he lifted the tail of his tunic, leaning forward to wipe it against his brow. Before she could choose not to look, there was a fleeting glimpse of skin, stained by sun and flecked with raised, colorless scars along his sturdy ribs. The fabric fell just as quickly, and Sansa pulled her knees up as she listened close, watching him move, watching him sniff and look at the rain beyond the window and clear his gravelly throat. "Even that goat farmer, she didn't even get a look at you, but she knew it anyway and gave me things to give you, hid things even. I never paid for that milk."

Sansa regarded him studiously and thought of the hair comb, but then she was frowning. "Not everyone likes me." The voice that came out just then was hers, but she had never heard it sound that way before. It was darker somehow, and older. "The ones that don't like me _hate _me," she reminded him. "Some of them want to kill me."

He shook his head at her, his stare grim and cast in stone, and his face went so still that for a moment, his burned side didn't even look real. "Some of them," he said. "But the simple kind, they smile at you, want to help you." For a moment, she thought he was just being kind, trying to gentle her worries, but then he added, "Be careful with that," and, falling into her reflective void, she understood.

Wiping his hand against his knee, Sandor pulled himself up and went to the door to see about her bathwater. This time, she followed him there, stopping short when he opened it wide and his shoulders went stiff. He was staring down the hall, and Sansa leaned around him to look, but there was nothing there, only the retreating boots of some man going down to the tavern, and one of the inn girls struggling up the steps with a sloshing bucket in hand. "This is my last trip m'lord," the girl was huffing. "She can get that bath now, an' I'll fill you one after, if it please you."

Sandor never acknowledged the girl, and the look he gave Sansa was taut and agitated. "Go on then," was all he said, and she ducked back into the room to get the bag with the soap and her new clothes. When she slipped through the doorway and followed the tavern girl into the bath chamber, she glanced back to hear him tell her, "I'll be back for you in a while." His voice was different now, flat and terse, and she was gaping after him as he turned on his heel and thudded his way swiftly down the stars, when the door swung closed between them.


	17. Chapter 17

_**Minor warning for physical violence/gore in this chapter.**_

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-School is kicking my ass, but I am surviving. Summer semesters are evil._

_-Tumbleton, part 3! I know this took forever, and no matter what I do, I'm not happy with it. So if you see anything that needs fixing, let me know! I need to get a pair of fresh eyes on this thing._

_-This chapter is done in a weird style. Instead of doing two smaller chapters, I crammed it into one because much of what goes on here is happening simultaneously. So I actually switch the POV's several times between Sandor and Sansa, with their respective points of view separated by [...]. __It's sort of an experiment in writing, so hopefully it isn't confusing._

_-Your reviews are responsible for making any of this happen, so thank you very very very much! I'm more grateful than I can say. I just love you all._

_____-Find extended author's comments and 'Kindred'-themed images on my Tumblr (same as my username here). Feel free to send me an Ask on there, and I'll be glad to answer it in a post. Links to all 'Kindred' stuff is on the right-hand side of the page._

_____-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 17**

He'd been listening through the door, he knew he had. The fire was under his skin, and as the low ceiling over the stairs lifted away, he prowled into the dusky light of the tavern, his eyes tearing from head to face to cawing mouth, and none of them were him. Some serving girl passed by with a rattled smile, but he never heard what she was saying.

_You're a fool._

The bird was likely getting into her bath now, in some locked room of an inn in the middle of the world. That door was all there was to take his place, and there was nothing to be done for it. It was what it was. He had to find him.

Sandor was shoving his way between a flock of ambling drunks lifting their flagons and swaying on their feet as they bellowed _The Burning of the Ships_, when he spotted the pair of boots standing against the wall, black and oiled and laced up to the knee. The man's face had been obscured by a hoisted platter of bread, but when it drifted out of the way, his eyes leveled with Sandor's for an instant before sliding to the inn's entrance.

Sandor moved, but the craven was already wrenching the big door open and slipping out as quietly as a cat. He stayed on him, catching the door before it could close and dashing out into the rain, and the heavy oak fell shut at his back with a slam. At the sound, his target stopped and turned to watch him, expectant and expressionless in the dark. Rainwater tumbled off the roof in streams, making wide black puddles at the foot of the front steps, and the downpour was lit white in the sporadic flicker of lightning. The storm would only get worse.

Coolly, the foreigner stepped back out of the torrent and up onto the porch, his hair pulled back into a sleek tail at his neck and his right hand hovering still at his hip. The bare blade hung there from a simple strap, resembling a marriage between a shortsword and a Dothraki arakh. Its grip was unadorned and wrapped in leather, but its blade shone bright in the glow emitting from the inn's windows, sharpened on one side and slightly curved. Sandor had left his own sword in the room with no time to go back for it, and he recalled the dirk he kept low at his back, knew it would be there still.

Staring at the man through slitted eyes, Sandor was at least a head taller. "I saw you," he gritted, "up in the hall. You were listening to us, and you'll tell me why."

"I was leaving my room, nothing more."

The man didn't move when Sandor took a step, pulling himself closer and hissing, "Bad liar. Bad spy too. I heard you out there before I even went for the door."

The foreigner's eyes were vacant as he withstood the glare, and he nodded once. Admittance. Calm, he stepped back, drew himself up. "I was curious."

"Were you," Sandor sneered. "What of?"

"What a man like you is doing with a girl like her."

The smirk peeled up, dead and ruthless. "A man like me."

"A dog like you," the man said. "A king's dog. You are easy to recognize, Hound."

Sandor's fingers twitched once at his side, his leaden eyes shrouded deep in the shadow of his brow. He couldn't know where the man had come from, but his accent stank of Braavos. There were many in Westeros who knew of the Hound's burns, and many more who feared his blade, but this one was all insolence. The fear wasn't there. "You're a long way from home," Sandor said. He saw it now. This man wasn't here for himself at all; he'd been bought. His knowledge of the Hound was ill-informed, all banter and hearsay.

_Some rat of Kings Landing, that's all he is. Some dead rat._

"Were you such a piss-poor sword that Braavos spat you out?" Sandor glanced at the man's blade. "So you come here looking to turn that shit steel of yours into gold. Who bought you?"

For an instant, the Braavosi looked as if he was going to counter the accusation, but then he abandoned it, and Sandor knew what was next before it happened, his dirk clanging against the curve of the blade. The dagger rasped along its edge until the hilt caught, and then Sandor's boot lashed out, battering the man hard in the chest. He went down like a doll, landing on his back at the foot of the stairs in a shower of black mud. Sandor was on him in a moment, but then he was rolling away, pulling himself up quick and hunkering low with his steel held across his chest.

Panting, Sandor moved, and again, the curved blade came up, hissing through the rain, parrying, catching on the dirk, and then it was gone. The foreigner recoiled and stumbled back, rounding the corner of the inn and staggering along the wall. His weapon lying useless in a puddle, he was still wheezing from the blow as Sandor's hulking shadow gained on him, seizing him by the throat and thrusting the back of his skull hard against the wall.

The man's fingers were clawing feebly at his hand, and Sandor squeezed. "Now, that's odd," he ground, teeth gnashed tight. "You know just what I am, said it yourself, and then you go and do something stupid." The man's pulse struggled against his palm and he brought up his dagger instead, edging it at the skin of his throat, cold death upon his windpipe. "You were bought. Say it."

"Y-yes." The sound was strangled, barely a man, barely anything.

Sandor glowered, the fury rolling in its pit. Water was running down his nose and into his mouth, and in a white flash, he was leering, the scar glistening and his eyes bright at the smell of fear. He knew he looked monstrous, saw it in the man's face. "No sellsword's got any business dealing with me, much less a whoreson like you."

The fool tried to shake his head. Couldn't. "You were not my… I knew not of you until I saw you in the tavern. I swear this."

"Why've you come?" Sandor growled. The knife bit once and the blood ran down, unseen.

"To escort…" The Braavosi yelped between his teeth. "…to find—"

Sandor yanked him forward and back again, cracking his head anew. "You've come _alone_," he barked. "This is no rescue, you're here to kill. The girl, is it? You slid in here like a snake and waited for a little girl so you could pick off her guards and stab her in her sleep." The man just stared at him, eyes wide and white, so Sandor pressed, and the skin dimpled against the steel. "If you lie, I'll butcher you right here, save the innkeep the trouble of gutting tomorrow's pig." He could see the pulse quicken, the artery jumping against his knife. It would take nothing to open it. A nick.

The words were evasive, all clutter and fear. "I was not waiting. I came only for bed and barter, I swear this."

It wasn't what he had wanted. "Fuck your swears. Where were you going?" he hissed, and when foreigner only squirmed, the blade moved, settling its edge between the black eyes. "Might be I'll peel your nose off. Slow." The man's boots were slipping now, stumbling against mud and gravel to gain traction, but Sandor had him hard by the jaw. "Just like coring an apple. Then you'd be easy to spot too."

_The fear, it's got him. He's out of lies._

"I was to wait at the Ivy Inn."

The Ivy Inn was on the Kingsroad, a stop on the way up to Winterfell, but the goods there were spare, and no township up north would be near as shoddy and quick to bargain as Tumbleton. The further one went from Kings Landing, the more costly supplies became. Sandor grimaced against the rain, staring the mercenary down and weighing his words. He had only taken the girl to Tumbleton because it was so far out of the way, and such a detour made little sense if they wanted to get north. No one would look there. After that, they wouldn't go to inns at all. This meeting had to be happenstance. Had to be.

"The name," Sandor demanded. "Now."

"P-please. It was not for you, you were not meant to be here—"

Sandor reversed his grip on the dirk and brought the blade down, and then it was halfway to the hilt in the meat behind the collarbone. Bellowing, the man raked at it, his fingers only catching on the point as it protruded from his upper back. "WHO?" Sandor thundered, and the sky lit up once more.

Now, the Braavosi was talking very fast, sputtering and gagging. "His name, his name is Trant. Trant, a knight of the…of the Kingsg—"

"I know what he bloody is." There was another scream and the blade was out again, shimmering with black as it went back to his throat.

"He protects the k-king now."

At that, Sandor spat in the mud. "How just. Wants to rape young girls and gets to be the king's new shadow. You took gold to kill the betrothed of the king? You're a mad fool."

"No…_gods!"_ The man was trembling now, shrinking under the steel in wretched agony. "Not betrothed. No longer. They think her dead. You can take everything, I have gold. Take it."

"They think her dead? He told you that?"

"Yes. Trant. Take everything," the man shrieked again.

"Oh, I will." Grabbing him up by the collar, Sandor pummeled him in the mouth with the point of his elbow. Then he brought him close and snarled in his face. "You're the first to go."

_"No!"_ The craven was thrashing now, kicking at the soggy ground, hollering against the howl of the storm. Weak and bleeding and witless. "It was only for gold!" he cried. "I would have been merciful, no pain, _please!_"

But the Hound had him, and he was dragging him into the night like an aurochs to slaughter.

**…**

In the bath chamber, there were no windows. The dank little room was occupied by only a rickety wooden tub, with a few candles in sconces anchored to the walls, their quiet glow hatching long shadows that moved with her, slinking across the floorboards and vanishing into the corners. Another candle sat burning on a spare old table by the bath, and the flame flickered skittishly in the steam. Sansa padded to it, barefooted and naked, and slid it cautiously away from the tub. The candles along the wall had burned short, and if she lost her light in here, it'd be dark as pitch. Untying her hair, she glanced up at the cobwebbed ceiling with its thick oaken beams, listening to the ceaseless drum of rain echoing in the crook of the roof. Her hair fell against her back in coiled tendrils as she bent to set out the things they'd bought; the round of green soap, the herbal wash, her little comb with its broken teeth.

Before, to be naked was to be stripped of security, all fear and dread, but she was glad to be rid of her clothes just now. Her skin clammy from the days of riding, the crude fabric of her shirt had begun to stick to it, and that was altogether unpleasant. The commonplace notion of good soap and warm water was suddenly precious and unfamiliar, so she stepped in slow, goose-bumped as the steam eased a sigh from her nose. It was terribly hot at first, and she had to sit on the sharp edge of the vat while her nerves acclimated to it, watching the skin of her calves grow ruddy. Then, careful, she let herself descend until the water enveloped her, rising as far as her shoulders.

It was a blanket of calm, of close heat and clear water, a tonic to purge the heavy weight of misgiving. For a while, she only gazed at the ribbons of candlelight moving along the surface of the water, absently circling soapy fingers against her scalp. Long minutes later, she leaned back and even started humming softly as she washed, one of Old Nan's songs, though Sansa sang it much better. She sighed the notes out dreamily, murmuring the words in certain parts and letting the rest fall into a vague, whispered melody, accompanied by the lovely purr of rain and far-off thunder, and the gentle lapping of the water against her tired skin.

Just as she was scouring accumulated grime from the bottoms of her poor feet, she felt the sting and ceased her humming, pulling her right leg up and pressing a thumb against the ball of her right foot. Several days ago, she'd stepped on something; a thorny vine in the forest, just a tiny thing asserting its claim on the earth with a host of spikes and brambles that had bitten her when she passed carelessly over them. It hadn't bothered her terribly, though now she could see the little hill in the skin, a halo of pink ringing it. Irritated, she scrubbed at it and let her foot drop heavily into the water.

_This will end. You're going to mother and Robb, or home. Bran and Rickon. Winterfell. Soon._

Then, with her soapy rag still in hand, her arms went slack and slipped from her knees, sinking into the bath. She lay there as if in a stupor, her reddened eyes hollow as she stared at the far wall, and her shoulders wilting. She would be going home, yes, but only her.

_Arya. I'm leaving Arya._

She knew she wasn't, not truly. Arya was gone and had been for ages, disappeared while Sansa was hopelessly captive to Joffrey. Still, she felt the guilt carving its way into her chest, the awful stab of accountability. There was nothing to be done for it, no option for atonement or penitence, yet she had never felt so selfish.

_Your little sister. Vanished or captive or killed. Fierce and small. And you will return to mother's arms without her. Without Lady. Without father._

Then, with the low roll of thunder above, it came tumbling over her, a remorse so raw it made her whimper, and she slid down into the water until her nostrils were skimming the surface.

_I did as I was told. I sang my courtesies, I wrote their letter. Father wanted to go home, he had always wanted that. He knew what Joffrey was, and I still wanted him. Wanted him, how could I want him?_

When Sansa was little, she had heard a legend from the north, some singer's story of a maiden who had loved a young knight, but she was betrothed to another. When war came, the maiden dreamed of a terrible battle, a vision sent by the gods. She saw the knight fall dead on the field, and when she woke, she rushed to warn him, begging him not to go. He refused her and went on to fight in the war, where he died in battle, just as he had in her dream. Distraught and unmoved by what little consolation her betrothed could offer her, she became mad with woe and went to a frigid river to drown herself. Some said she held herself under, and in other versions of the story, she sewed stones into her skirts to make her sink, but in the end, she died just the same.

Sansa didn't know what made her remember the tragic tale now, but she looked mournfully into her bathwater, wondering how the maid must have felt, so helpless, so terribly desperate. Perhaps in the deep of the pool, she had found her peace. Perhaps her father had found peace as well. Hooking her fingers over the edges of the tub, Sansa did the strangest thing. She took a great breath and sank down until the surface of the water rose to her throat, her chin, her eyes, and her knees bent as she went all the way under, the back of her head resting against the bottom. Then she held herself there.

The sounds of the storm faded to a dull drone, the water tickling as it flooded her ears. For a moment, she opened her eyes to see the candlelight rippling gold along the glassy surface of the bath. Locks of hair floated before her face like fire, casting wispy shadows across her cheeks and forehead. When she shut her eyes again, she let herself drift, loosing every muscle, letting bubble after bubble flee from her lips until her lungs stopped holding her afloat. It was when she heard the comfort of her own heart, beating slow and close, that she fell away from the bath. She felt nothing beneath her now, no fear, no pressure from the water, only warmth and the deep, vital beating.

It was Arya she saw first, standing in mess of people, so much smaller than everyone else, but stern and still in her anger. She was gripping a sleeve, their father's sleeve, and staring knives at Sansa through all the others. Their faces were blurred, but she knew them all. King Robert, as he had been then, Joffrey, the Queen, her father's men. They were all staring at her as if she had just spoken, and she realized she was back on the Kingsroad the day Lady had died, the day Joffrey had lied to the King, the day she had lied _with_ him.

Sansa couldn't look anymore, couldn't see the stab of betrayal in her sister's eyes, raw in her resentment. Desperately, she raised her gaze to her father, but now he was gone, fading into shadow. Above it all was the thud of her heartbeat, louder now, faster, and she wanted to press her palms to her ears, but she couldn't move her arms. _'Liar!'_ she heard her sister scream. _'You're lying!'_

And then she saw Sandor – no, _the Hound_ – standing obediently behind his masters, his eyes repentant, but his face dead and cold as stone. The steel of his longsword was naked in his grip, and a long swath of blood ran from hilt to tip, the blood of a boy, just a boy. Panic had her then and, with terrible dread, she felt like she had dealt the blow herself.

_You killed him. It was never Sandor, but you. You killed Lady too, you killed them both. And father, oh father…_

The heart was too loud and she couldn't see. Abruptly, the rough bottom of the tub was rushing up beneath her and she felt the throb in her head, her lungs seizing. Grabbing at the sides of the vat, she came up gulping the air, her hair plastered to her face in weeping sheets. She raked at it, disoriented, and blinked at the flickering light, the floor, the walls. Was she going mad? It had been just like a dream, but she couldn't have fallen asleep, not beneath the water. Rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, she looked at her new gray dress folded upon the table and made herself rise, dripping and suddenly very cold.

**…**

The glow of the windows came hovering toward him, his steps slopping heavy in the muck of the road. He had gnashed his teeth for so long, his temples had begun to ache, and he was working the soreness from his jaw as he went back into the belly of the tavern, sparse voices passing by him and fading into their cups. In his unease, he scowled when he caught the innkeep waddling by with a wash bucket, staring at Sandor's dirty boots and then up at him, but he did little more than get out of the way. Sandor looked at no one else and went straight up, taking the steps two at a time until he found the door.

When he saw the line of light beneath it, a belt of fire glimmering yellow in the gloomy hall, he slowed his steps. Measuring his weight on the old floor, he went noiselessly to the door and set his ear close, his fists loosening as he heard the steady lap of water. A hand went to his pocket and he dug, his fingers still rigid with violence, and he had the key to their room in his palm when the sound found him. Light and lilting, it came drifting through the door, and he didn't move. Sansa was singing, humming to herself in the quiet.

It was the sound of safety, and he closed his eyes, leaning his shoulder there, just for a while. The fragility of it had pierced him, and he was anchored to it. Held. It wasn't any song he had heard, but in the small voice, there was an absence of fear that poured out his relief and leveled him. He wouldn't drag her away from here, not now. Not until morning. Bending, he slid the key beneath the door so she could let herself into their room, and then he left her to her bath.

In the light downstairs, he sat himself by the stairs and inspected his hands. The blood had washed clean away in the rain, gone as if the dead stranger had never existed at all. The body wouldn't be found, not for days, and they'd be long gone by then, as far north as he could get them. When the gap-toothed inn girl brought him the last of the night's ale, she stammered something at him about dry clothes, and all he said was, "No. She's almost done up there, and you'll refill the tub when she is. Get." She just nodded and ran off without looking at him, and he didn't much care.

The night wasn't even late yet, and all of this madness. He stared into his flagon.

_He had no reason to lie. Too afraid. Death came at him and lies had no use. We can stay._

A drink went down, and another, and he thought of her. Thought of her, and of the cold ground, and of her arms all goose-pimpled in the mornings.

_She'll have her bed. She'll have that. No one will come._

**…**

Something woke her. Her eyes opened, but her bones were still set in slumber, legs tucked up into her skirts and feet coiled tightly together. Wincing at the effort, she shifted beneath the camp blanket she'd pulled from one of their bags and turned over. The light was very dim now, only a single candle left burning in its pool of wax on the sill, and she had to squint against the dark to see him.

He was there by the window, the meager candlelight outlining his big shoulders as he slouched in the small wicker chair. It must have been very late, and he had fallen asleep with his arms folded over his chest, his chin and cheek resting heavy upon his right shoulder. He grunted softly, mumbling something she couldn't understand, and she watched him tense and fall still.

_He's dreaming._

He looked different now, even in the dark, with his fresh shirt and his skin and hair free of dirt. Yawning, she gathered herself up and wiggled to the edge of the bed, frowning at the chill of the floor against her toes. She wavered once when she stood and swung her arms out so as not to fall, and then went as quietly as she could to the leather bags by the wall. She had balled her new cloak up and left it there on the floor, and now she picked it up, feeling the warm wool with her fingertips and flipping it the other way to brush her hand across the soft inner lining. This would do.

Stepping heel-to-toe, she crossed the room at a careful pace, biting her lip to keep herself from sniffling or breathing too loudly. As she neared him, she spread the cloak out in her hands, her brow furrowing as the billow of fabric made the candle flutter, and when she looked back at him, she went stiff. He had opened his eyes and was looking mildly up at her. He didn't shift at all, didn't even lift his head from the bed of his shoulder. Silent, he watched her, and she knew he saw what she was doing.

A few seconds went by, and then he sighed, his chest sinking with it. His eyes drifted closed and the whole of him seemed to dwindle. At this subtle consent, she drew forward, draping the cape delicately across him and stepping nimbly over his outstretched shins. She had started to go back to her bed when she remembered and turned, laying a hand on the sill and bending over it to hush the candle out.


	18. Chapter 18

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Thank you for the unbelievable reviews I got on my last chapter!_

_-Find extended author's comments and 'Kindred'-themed images on my Tumblr (same as my username here). Feel free to send me an Ask on there, and I'll be glad to answer it in a post. Links to all 'Kindred' stuff is on the right-hand side of the page._

_-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 18**

He'd have them packed long before she woke. With the blush of first light, he'd locked her in and haunted out into the mist of pale morning. It was coming off the river in a creeping billow of white, hugging the runny mud of the road and chilling him as he ducked into the stables with their bags upon his shoulders. They were heavier now, and that was good. He could see her north.

Running his palm against the black velour of Stranger's shoulder, he glanced up and found the window tucked beneath the crest of the inn's roof, the wood stained dark from rain. When he left her, she'd been only halfway under her blankets. Most of the fabric was gathered into a swaddled lump against her chest, her nose crushed into it as if it were alive. He had looked a while, thought on making her get up, but then he dropped the cloak over her legs and went. She could keep her armful of blanket, so long as her toes were covered.

She had had come to him in the night. Her feet hushed light across the floor, and she'd been gentle in her caution, but he had fallen out of his fretful sleep at the graze of a heel, the pop of a sleepy ankle. She had come to him, and he had thought things, seen her there in the tired light of the candle, thought things and did none of them. She hadn't wanted to be caught, so he shut his eyes for her, and when she bent, he had felt the tickle of her hair and the delicate press of the cloak. His breath had brought in the scent of her, mingling with the new warmth of wool, and the skin of his arms had gone to gooseflesh beneath it.

But that was then, and then was over, gone with the dawn and the dread of new risk, always pressing, always waiting to rip her away.

Leaving the horse to nicker behind, he yawned at the silence and creaked his way across the porch. Inside, some little thing was stirring the ashes at the hearth, hair like straw and bony knees drawn up under a threadbare dress that had been slept in more than once. Always by the fire, that girl, no more than five and made to tend a thing so cruel. As he went to the table by the stairs, he caught the child watching, a sprig of hay in her hair and snot on her nose. In a second, she sniffed it away and ran off to the kitchens where the banging was starting up.

**…**

The bird was drowsy and far away. She ran her fingers along the wall when she came down, her other arm toting their camp blankets in an untidy ball. Her cloak was on, as were her boots, and her hair had been pulled back tight, an auburn bauble at the top of her neck.

_She has it now, all the moving. I don't have to tell her._

She came to stand by him with her eyes on the hearth girl, frowning with pity as he knew she would, and then she slumped onto the bench and piled the blankets between them. They sat a while, the bird yawning and rubbing her nose and watching innkeep greet each newly risen guest, and then she looked at Sandor.

"Awake?" He didn't mind her dawdling, not just now, but when she nodded, the both of them got up.

With the passing of a copper, they had bread from the kitchen, a large brown loaf baked with nuts and raisins, and he let her carry it out while he scooped up the bedding. He didn't so much as glance up when he heard the innkeep stop one of the boys coming in from the stable, whispering at him about the man with the accent and his things still in the room, and whether he gone off drunk somewhere. Sandor heard the light breath from the girl at his back, the small scuff of her boots, felt the familiarity of her, and the blood spilled the night before fell to the back of his mind.

She was avoiding puddles as they crossed to the stables, though he couldn't see how she'd keep that up. The storm had turned the road to slop. Only the packed earth of the stables was dry, musty with horses and molded hay. "That one's yours," he told her, and she had bread in her mouth when she looked.

The small chestnut gelding was blinking slow at them, blowing gently in the far stall, and the girl's pale eyes took on a softness. "When did you—"

"Yesterday." He guided Stranger out of his stable while the bird wandered away to see, and he made himself busy, shaking out the blankets and rolling them and strapping them down. His eyes kept shifting though, glancing to see her reach over the trough, chewing at her breakfast and welcoming the creature with a touch.

"She's very calm," she noticed. The morning came wandering in through a gap in the roof and spilled over her arm, and she turned her chin to give him a moment's smile before sifting her fingers through the dusty mane.

"He."

"He," she corrected herself.

The shrill cry of roosters followed them while they drifted through town, and the white sky was beginning to blue again, its gray-bellied clouds retreating southward. The girl kept just behind him, walking the horse as he'd shown her, leading without pulling, but her lips were pressed tightly together all the time, her steps careful and unsure. More than once, Stranger gave Sandor a willful yank of his head, but his master only rattled the bit and hissed, "He's staying and you'll have it."

The fishermen were the only ones out, and they could be heard calling at each other from behind the houses, their nets rattling and sloshing as they were tossed into the Mander's quiet currents. Others drifted through alleys with pails of bait, and the thin mutts on their heels cautiously wolfed up any chunks of spoiling fish or chicken innards that happened to fall. Yawning, Sandor looked back to find the bird dozy and rubbing her eyes with her knuckles, and he pulled Stranger into a sluggish amble, slowing some. It was better this way, he knew, rising with the morning and going quickly before too many eyes could fall on them. Though he doubted the man had talked, his encounter during the night had made him wary. The girl would have to keep up.

They were nearly to the gate when the creaking tack went quiet behind, and he turned his head to find that she had stopped and was biting at her lip. She wanted something. So he set his free palm on the hilt of the steel at his hip and watched her, waiting, as little as Stranger liked it.

"I didn't tell you," she murmured quietly at him. "I forgot to." She had a fistful of dress in a bunch at her hip, keeping the hem safe from mud, but her boots were already black to the ankles. "When I went to the midwife, I had her sew something for me. If I could fetch it, the house is just there."

He said nothing, but looked to the midwife's home huddled by the road and sagging beneath its wing of moss and vines. Pulling Stranger to the ash-limb fence lining the pig yard, he tied him there and went to do the same for the girl's gelding, keeping both horses well enough apart. Even tied by the bridle, Stranger had a tendency toward trouble. "Have you paid her for it?"

"I have."

"Don't do that." He looked up from the rein as he knotted it tight, and she was standing there with her fingers clasped over her skirts, once more the lady, the bird of some castle, poised and still in the filth of the road. Her great embarrassment was written in scarlet at the tip of her nose, though, and when she averted her eyes, he clarified brusquely, "Always pay after. Elsewise, they'll make off with your coin and your dignity besides."

"Oh," she said. "Of course. It was foolish."

Rasping his sigh, he looked back at the little hut and leaned against the fence, folding his arms to wait. "Stay where I can see you. She can bring it to the door."

The girl did just as she was told, fidgeting and explaining when the door was opened, and she peered hesitantly into the dwelling while she waited. Something had her eye, he could see it, and he grimaced after her as she took what was hers and came padding back through the muck. It was another bundle of fabric and fur, held to her chest with both arms and bound by a braided leather cord.

Nudging himself off the fence, he went to take it from her, and she was flushed in full now, bright in the pale of morning. It was a newly-made bed roll, better than the one he had brought with them, and heavier. When he looked at her next, she was watching him like she feared some refusal, but the worry was gone when he gave her his calm. "Goats' fur."

"Yes. Do you…is it to your liking?" The light fed into her eyes just-so when she said it, turning them silver against the fading bruises.

"It'll be warm," he mumbled, and he went to fix it to the gelding's saddle with the girl on his heels. "Was the other not new enough for the lady?" There was steel there, cold in his voice, and he hadn't meant it. Glancing up, he saw the wound in her face, but she was stammering before he could backpedal.

"No. No, the other is quite acceptable. Of course." She was pulling at the skirt now, speaking quickly and with a muddle of old courtesies and the newfound simplicity that suited her so much better. "It's only that there are two of us, though I know you hadn't meant for that, and I thought you should have something to sleep on. Besides the ground."

"Aye, I won't mind having mine back. And you'll like this one better. Thicker."

The frustration came up in her words then, and he was peering wryly at her from behind the horses when she insisted, "But I don't want it for myself, I already have one. It was meant for _you_." She hadn't wanted to say that, and he could see he had spoiled everything. He knew it had been a gift, of course he knew, but prodding her was the easiest thing in the world.

"Little bird," he rasped at her. "Don't puff your feathers at me. I know." Remembering the weight of the cloak she had put over him in the night, he gentled himself. "Still, you'll have this bed and that's all. I want my old one." With a last gander at the riverside village, he went to free the horses from the fence. "It's time we go."

**…**

The fields beyond Tumbleton were a sea spun of gold, shimmering in every breeze like a rippling blanket and giving flight to chittering hosts of sparrows when they passed by. The girl held her reins loosely, as if she wasn't sure of whether she should be doing something with them, but she rode well enough. In his caution, Sandor kept the gelding tethered by a long rope looped round his saddle horn, giving the horse distance without letting him roam. This seemed to pacify the bird's worry, so he left it there long after the gelding had learned his role as follower.

They were going back the way they had come, trudging slow along the path and up the hill toward the tree line, where they would go on through the wild knolls and creek beds of the wood. Once past the goat farm, they'd push northward until it came time to choose between Starks and Tullys, north or west, and then he'd have her home. What he would do then, he hadn't decided.

_Nothing. Hand her off and go. What else? Serve her banners? They want wolves, not dogs._

The trees were crawling toward them now, first just a sapling here and there, and then clumps of young ashes and birches, bowing over steps in the hillside where groundwater tended to settle. The girl's gelding blew, gaining on Stranger with a short-lived trot, and the rattling made Sandor look back again. She was clinging tight to the horn, her shoulders rigid and jostling with the horse's pace, but there was a smile somewhere in her reticence, a timid sort of delight as she caught up with him.

The light was in his eyes as he watched her rocking her boot in the stirrup, the eastern sun lining her crown with a reddish glow when she bent to pat at the steed's russet coat. She was growing to like it, riding with her skirts padded up beneath her and her knees anchored astride the saddle. She had almost refused such a mannish posture, or so her sulking brow had told him, but it had been gone with his steady glare and the regal lift of her chin, and getting her settled hadn't been any bother after that.

Now, she was rocking easy, a careless hand clinging to the saddle horn and the other twined up in the heavy cloth of her skirt. The round of bread had been put away for a later meal, and her eyes were drifting across the gap between their horses, searching persistently along Stranger's saddlebags. Scanning the tree line hugging the far-off ridge, Sandor gave the bird her moment to vex over asking him. When she didn't, he squinted at her. "The bag on your left. By your knee."

"Pardon?" She was blinking at him in her most convincing manner, but then the pink came sweeping across her nose, and her head bent to confirm his assertion. After a brief hunt in the contents of the leather bag, her fingers found their prize and emerged with the little purse swaying, heavy with the dried and candied dates. "How did you know I wanted them?"

He only glanced at her, finding her in his peripheral. "Leave some for me," he grunted, "and I won't sell you for more."

Hardened to his drollery, she popped a date into her mouth and shook her head, letting the silence creep between them a while before it came up. Her voice was very quiet then, and he could just hear her over the gait of the horses when she asked him. "What happened at the inn?"

For a while, the question was left to linger on the air. Hooves pressed along the dewy ground and little wings flitted up from pockets in the brush, but it was the girl's sigh that brought him back to her. "When?"

"After we ate," she said, "you seemed distracted. Then you left."

"Never left. I went to the tavern." It was the truth, and enough of it to make her brows pull together, but then he turned her question over. "In the midwife's cottage, what was it you saw?"

"A boy. He was ill."

The look he gave her was sharp. "How?"

"I saw him coughing, and there was sweat on his face. She was caring for him, I think. When he saw me looking, he pulled the blanket over his head." The girl said it simply and without pause, but then she was watching him, swaying in her saddle, weighing his evasion. "Was it nothing, then? At the inn?"

"It's nothing now," he muttered, but then he saw her, her eyes knowing, and he was ensnared in her immovable patience. "That man."

She nodded once, though not at him. The gesture was an acceptance of her circumstances, a kind of understanding that made her seem older, harder. It was disquieting. "He was watching me," she stated simply. "He had black eyes."

"And you've got red hair," Sandor pointed out. "And a proud step. And hands that haven't been worked."

To that, she went bitter, and the words came strained as she kicked the gelding to keep pace with him. "Shall I rake my hands against stone until they are bloody? Would you have me adopt a limp?" When Sandor ignored her, she went on, insisting, "He couldn't know me. You said Joffrey would think me dead, and the Queen would have sent the City Watch."

"The lady knows all," he growled, glaring across the space and shutting her mouth with the ice of his look. "Doesn't she?" Then he nodded, spotting the unease and leaning toward her frown. "There it is. You've remembered." She was beaten, it was plain, and her shame almost made him stop, but he couldn't. Her carelessness had troubled him. "You don't know anything, not for certain. You never do, never will. Don't forget."

Wordless, she looked away, and her voice was a meek thing when it rose up again. "Who was he?"

"A man who didn't mind taking a girl's head for gold." He glanced her way, and she was white. "A coward who sold his blade to a knight I should have killed. And will."

"He followed us here?"

"No," he told her, and it helped just some, easing her grip on the saddle horn. "He would have, later, but we caught him unaware. Small chance, that. Went off to kill and found himself dead. I'd call it luck if I believed in it."

"You killed him?" It wasn't an accusation, though she still couldn't meet his eyes. She had come to accept it, the way he did death's work, easy and without thought. Her resignation left him relieved, and stung. "Was it just him? What if—"

"Enough." He stopped her there, his voice heavy. "He came for you and died for it. It was me he hadn't planned for." Waiting for her to look at him again, he caught her eye and gave her his certainty. "Don't think anyone knows I have you, bird, I got that much out of him. When he still thought he might live." Then he left her to her doubts and glanced over the far hillside. "No more inns. Not 'til we've run out of woods."

He thought she might sulk over it, thought she'd loose one of her proud sighs, but she leaned just far enough to hand him a date instead. "I'm sorry for my hair."

"Thought to rid you of it," he admitted. "Didn't." The both of them were chewing then, guiding their eyes over the rolling land, and nothing more was said of it.


	19. Chapter 19

_AUTHOR'S NOTES:_

_-Not much to say here... this chapter ended up being ridiculously long, so I broke it into two pieces. Here's the first bit of around 3,000 words, and the next part I'm still working on. Thanks for staying with me this long...I'm so humbled by all of your help and reviews. You make it a joy to write._

_-Find extended author's comments and 'Kindred'-themed images on my Tumblr (same as my username here). Feel free to send me an Ask on there, and I'll be glad to answer it in a post. Links to all 'Kindred' stuff is on the right-hand side of the page._

_-All other story info (content warnings, character age adjustments, etc.) is at the top of Chapter 1. Enjoy!_

* * *

**CHAPTER 19**

Beneath the morning sun, the forest loomed up to swallow them, and the way they had come seemed greener now. Plants stood rigid after the energy of the storm, with leaves leaning into the light and petals winking at them as they passed, heavy with droplets. Winding between the trees was the footpath that had led them into Tumbleton, dotted with puddles and small muddy prints from deer in the night. Again, they passed little dwellings, and again, the old woman stared from her front steps as they went by.

"Do you think she ever goes in?" The whisper came up behind him, and he looked back to see the careful, solemn face, and the amusement that hid beyond the blue. He watched her sway in the saddle and she dropped her eyes, tucking her skirts around her legs to keep them from the air. It was humid, but cool, and the girl had pulled her hair from its twist, letting it fall in damp waves across her cloak. She was binding it into a braid when he faced forward to guide the horses around a large puddle that had gathered in the belly of the path, and then up the incline that followed.

When he saw the thing, he knew it right away. "Quiet," was all he could say, and then he was yanking the reins. Just at the crest of the hill, he had seen the gold bobbing, and it took him all of a moment to get both horses off the path. There was a struggle as the gelding stalled and found his way around a watery ditch, but they'd gone right through someone's garden and behind the old woman's shack before either of them heard the distant slopping of mud.

Sandor was off of Stranger now, pulling him by the bridle to stand close against the cabin's wall. The girl was hunched over her saddle, fingers twined up in mane, staring down at him. The only sound was that of the forest, sighing trees and breathing horses, but their silence was broken with her gasp of understanding, her meager utterance as she questioned him. "Wh—"

Then he was pulling at her, hands seizing her waist and hauling her down in a tangle of auburn hair and startled arms gripping at his shoulders. He gave her no chance to quiet herself, but yanked her into him and pressed his shoulder to the wall, hating how the hauberk scraped. She was shivering under his hand, her mouth trapped tight against his palm, and he saw her eyes roll up beneath his chin, judging his alarm. Soundless, he shook his head, and they waited.

The noise came and went on by, leather and plate, the quiet mutterings of riding men, and never did they stop. From her spine, he felt the rapid pace of the little bird's heart, pounding clean through the mail at his stomach, and, slowly, he let his hand fall. She breathed out when he got her by the shoulders and nudged, pushing her to the corner of the house so she could get her look. The Gold Cloaks were riding away now, straight on to Tumbleton, and not one of them was looking down for tracks.

_A search or a sack?_

He couldn't be sure. Since the battle, common life near King's Landing would be turned on its head. Markets would be taxed triple, and goods would be horded for the city while the smallfolk were left to scour what was left of stripped farms and fields.

_No. Too many. This is Cersei. Cersei and her bloody peace of mind._

After slow, still minutes, the banners and blades had long since passed, and the girl stepped backward, stumbling on her feet until she backed right into him. He didn't move. "Could be market business, could be anything," he muttered to her, but the way she looked up at him stripped him of optimism. Grinding his molars, he moved around her and tugged at Stranger.

They walked the horses back to the open in a hurry, flushed cheeks and hands in fists, and the bird's eyes were flitting all along the path. Sandor was lifting a boot to his stirrup when he spotted the ancient woman, still seated quietly on the stair, hunkered over and watching them in her tired way. The eyes were set deep in their sockets, the color murky from too many days, but still, they saw. Surely, she knew they had been hiding from the road. He saw it in her stare, in the way she set her jaw at them. Then he decided her mind wasn't any good anymore, or else she would have given them up for the prospect of a copper.

The bird saw the crone too, and Sandor was only halfway on his horse when he heard her chirping, still tremulous with fear. "Wait."

"Get on your horse."

This time, she didn't listen. She was clawing through a bag, glancing fretfully up at him, and then she hurried off to the sagging porch, the little pouch in hand. He craned his neck to warn her that the old thing was likely daft, but then a frail arm was lifted, the candied dates were given away, and, feebly, the woman said, "Blessings, child. They'll hear no word, not from me."

**…**

The morning was spent deep within the forest, with slender trees passing between them as their mounts picked around stones and brambles. Sandor had untied the gelding's tether to hasten their passage, and now he peered at the girl through brief windows in the underbrush. "We'll find the edge of the wood soon enough," he said. "It'll make an easier ride."

"I hope you won't be cross," he heard her mumble.

"Why?"

"I know you wanted them, but she has so little."

Sandor ducked beneath a hovering limb, and then he gave her a sneer that made her look elsewhere. "You think she's got the teeth to eat them with?" He shook his head, pulling the stopper from his waterskin. "You'd better pray she likes dates better than coins."

"There is a boy living there, you know," she told him. "I saw him yesterday when we rode by. He can eat them, and love them, surely." She lifted her chin at him when she said it, and he detested that. "I trust her word."

Now he laughed at her, and his grin was wide and genuine, ugly as it might have been. "You do, don't you? I hope that goes well for you. Trust." He took a long pull on the water and stoppered it up again, relieving the girl of his stare and sighing into the trees. "Wise enough not to trust me though, aren't you?" It was quietly said, and he didn't know if she had heard him, but then he didn't care.

**…**

Instead of cutting through the wood, they followed its edge by day, gaining them more distance from King's Landing later, when the time would come to cross the Blackwater Rush. Nights were still spent in the shelter of trees, though the ground wasn't so hard on him now. The girl had seen to that. That morning, she had crawled from her slumber to sneeze at the mossy air, and then melted into the forest, her shirt sooty from the fire and her new gray dress draped over an arm. She would be scrubbing her clothes for a good while, he knew, and so he had been the one to stay sprawled over the fur, letting his head roll and his eyes slip shut again. Her bed was newer, and better besides, but this one was his, and it smelled of her still.

She wore the dress now as she rode, its hem clean of old mud, and the clouds were coming in again, a gray border on the horizon of the late afternoon. When the meadow beyond came peeking through the edge of the wood, he knew they would soon find the old stone well. The girl caught sight of it first, turning her head to watch it go by, and then she rode close behind as they made their way to the tree line.

"The farm," she called, and there it was. As before, he saw the dark roof rising up from the far hill, though this time, the chimney lacked smoke and the goats were calling, loud and hungry. "Oh," she sighed. "I should have kept those old boots. I gave them to the midwife. I should have returned them here."

He wasn't listening to her just then, but straightened his back to peer over the retreating knoll, squinting as the small house drifted into view. In the grassy sea, there were clothes on the line, and the goats were lying in groups about their pen, bleating and chewing and keeping close to the grain trough. Searching along the fence, he looked for the stout little farmer's wife, but the grounds were still and unoccupied. Even the morning's wash had been left out, hanging wet on the rim of the big wooden tub.

That was what made Sandor slow his horse, and now he looked harder while the bird's gelding wandered on to take point. He saw the seed shed where it stood leaning on its base, the bag of grain discarded in the dirt, saw the house's dusty porch and the water pail left there, lying on its side. Then the doorway. Even from here on the timbered ridge, he could see the dark gap where the wood should have been, the daylight spilling in. The door was wide open.

"Something's changed," he said.

The girl had tightened up on her reins to make the horse stop, and he looked to find her eyes on him. They watched one another, her shoulders rocking when the gelding yanked at a clump of weeds, and Stranger huffed at them both.

Grimacing, he chose. "Lean back when he goes downhill," he told her. "We're going to look."

**…**

The waning sun was golden now, bathing the yard in a verdant burst of light that made him narrow his eyes against it. The bird's horse wasn't far, following along the pen by instinct, and a scatter of young goats bounded up from the grass to paw at the fence, snuffling at the air and wanting their grain. Sandor craned his neck to see her grinning at them, but then she caught his eye, found the disquiet, and sobered herself. Softly, she queried, "Shall I keep silent again?"

He felt the scar twitch once and shook his head, gnawing at the coarse ripple of skin at the left pocket of his lower lip. She saw him thinking and did as he did, frowning at the empty yard, at the barren feed trough. When he answered, his voice was all gravel, low and dead. "You won't have to. Stay on the horse."

When the horses were tethered, he crossed the ground with eyes hard-set. Blades of grass shicked across the steel of his greaves while the grip of his sword stirred at his hip, tight in the nest of his palm. He stopped hard at the steps when he saw the blood, not more than a thread, a scarlet glisten upon the green, and another by the eroded front step. Then he heard the scuff and whipped his head round to find her. Her hands were in little fists and her mouth was half-open, set to explain her defiance.

He wouldn't let her. "I told you—"

"Keep me with you," she pleaded. "I'm safer. By you."

She was shaken now, and he looked past her at the horses, saw the sense in it. A flick of his hand told her to keep close to his back, and they went. The groaning of wood was familiar beneath his boots and with every other step, he turned to watch her move slowly as he did, spotting the blood as he had, sweeping the porch with her skittish eyes.

"Wait," he said, and she waited, silent, by the overturned pail. Grim-faced, he left her there and went to the door.

He saw the hand first, fingers curled as if in sleep, and as he ducked inside, there was the tangle of ash brown hair. The woman lay with her head in a wide black pool, and the husband had been left to die slower, run-through and leaning against a cupboard. His eyes and mouth were open. What little they had owned was in piles and pieces, flung all around. The smell was stale, though death was still new, and soon, it would ripen, making itself known on the air.

A creak came from the porch as the girl paced around, fretting, and he paused to listen while his eyes swept the small bedroom. It was the coin that stayed him, hiding in shadow beneath the old chest. Stooping, the tip of his scabbard thunked the floor as he reached, and the copper star danced away a few times before he trapped it beneath his thumb and brought it out. A second coin had rolled into a corner, and the open purse was lying in dust, a token to tell of their trade. He thought of the stag he'd left without saying, shining silver and telltale atop the rickety set of drawers. Standing, he pushed back the heavy swell of unease before it was on him.

_She can't be here._

It took him all of three strides to leave the chamber behind, but he hadn't the time the step around the dead before her silhouette was in the entryway. The light came glaring in behind her, and there he stood fixed, to watch as she saw, as she plummeted.

"Oh no." The voice fell in brittle shards, and the young woman dwindled away to leave her small again, a child in the face of a thing so black. "Oh no."

She never looked at him as she pulled up her skirts to go to the farmer's wife, never saw him staring in his helpless way, naked before her sorrow. She sank to her knees in a single movement and, with no reluctance, set her fingers over the cold white hand. As the glinting wetness came to her lids, she brought the hand gently into her lap, cradling the timeworn digits between her palms. The long black fissure that bisected the woman's throat was entirely ignored.

Despite his haste, she didn't move, not while he opened cupboards and food sacks, not while he searched for some mark of who had committed the slaughter. Toting a sack of various kitchen stores, he turned to find her anchored to the floor, hugging her knees and gazing, dazed, out into the yard. "Up," he said.

Startled, she angled her face up at him, a pale mask of stony calm. The eyes were a dark sea beneath her brow.

"Up, now." He reached, but she leaned away. "Can't stay here."

When she saw his steadiness and the goods in his hand, the change came, and she went to steel in her refusal. "Why did it happen?" she whispered.

"People die."

"This was us." Shoulders straightening, she wiped a droplet from her chin, though it still quivered, and scowled at the bag he carried. "I don't want those."

Now, his eyes narrowed. "You'll want them when you're hungry in the wood. You'll want them when I've had enough of hunting for us both." He tossed the copper star into her lap. "There's why. My purse is what gave them away, see? I left a stag too, a thing you would do. You'd have left a dragon, wouldn't you?"

When she squirmed away from him, he got her by the arm, but she let herself sink, dead weight against his strength. "But how—"

"Those Cloaks we saw?" He dropped the sack, slid her closer until her skirt snagged on a splintering floorboard. "This was _them_. Farmers shouldn't have a generous purse and a stag for silence, not when a queen wants to prove you're dead for true."

Her tears were streaming now, dark trails against her skin. "Did they know where we were going? Would they tell?"

"They didn't know, and could be the woman tried not to say," he told her. "But they'd say anything to keep their heads, you can be sure of that. A kindly stag sitting in the open was all it took, and here they are." He glanced at the woman's body and the girl started to look, but shut her eyes instead. "Bloody kindness," he gritted. "Hers and mine. Now get up and take the bag to the horses. I'll see what else can be used, then we go."

Shaking her head, she wrenched her arm away and locked it tight around her knees. "How can you?" she cried. He had never seen her raise her voice like this, never seen her eyes so white. "They're dead. Because I needed _boots_. How can you..._rob_ them?"

The silence flooded in after, and there in her was the difference that held them apart, an unlikeness that had knived its way between them at the start, and would remain there until his end. It shook him, and his voice was thin. "They're gone, girl. Look, here." Shuddering, she did look, eyes red and blinking as he took up the bag again. "They can't use this anymore. You think leaving it will do them good? If it isn't us, someone worse will come to steal." Her face had gone still while he talked, and then it began to soften, the clearing of a quiet storm. "I told you, she didn't want anything for that milk, or the soup. You remember."

Slowly, the bird nodded. "She knew of me."

"Aye, she knew. And wanted you fed."

Again, he gave her his arm, and this time, she pulled herself up and stood like a stone pillar, taking a long, resigned look at the death in the room. "We mustn't leave them like this," she murmured. "They should be moved and put to rest. Properly."

"You Starks love your bloody martyrdom." He knew how he must have glared, but she only looked back at him, level. "Lingering is what kills you."

"Then protect me."

And in that, she reaffirmed his charge, the only function left to him, and the thing that so haunted his imagining of later, weeks away, when she would be gone. He stepped back from her, sniffed at nothing, looked at the blood, the blind eyes of the man in the corner, and then into the well of blue that was her vast integrity. "Quickly," was all he said, and they went to work.


End file.
